tihvavy  of  t:he  t:heolo0ical  ^tm\n<xxy 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


From  the  library  of 
Benjamin  Breckinridge  Warfield 

BV  4010  .G77 

Gregory,  D.  S.  1832-1915. 
Christ's  trumpet-call  to  th 
ministry 


TS-: 


CHRIST'S  TRUMPET-CALL  TO  THE 
MINISTRY. 


CHRIST'S   TRUMPET-CALL 
TO  THE  MINISTRY 


OR 


The  Preacher  and  the  Preaching  for  the 
Present  Crisis 


BY 

DANIEL  S.  GREGORY,   D.   D.,   LL.   D. 

Author  of ''Christian  Ethics,''  ''Why  Four  Gospels?''  Editor  of 

the  "" Homiletic  Review,"  Late  Managing  Editor 

of  The  Standard  Dictionary,"  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

LONDON  AND  TORONTO 
1896 


y 


Copyright,  i8q6, 

BY 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 


[printed  in  the  united  states] 


PREFACE. 


The  following  pages  embody  the  thoughts  and 
reasoned  convictions  of  the  writer  on  a  subject  that 
has  been  prominently  before  his  mind  during  much  of 
the  last  thirty  years  of  a  somewhat  active  life.  They 
lie  along  the  line  of  a  belief  which  he  shares  in 
common  with  many  other  Christians,  that  the  Church 
of  Christ  has  come  to  the  great  crisis  in  her  history 
and  work — a  crisis  big  either  with  unspeakable  dis- 
aster and  misery  for  all  the  future,  or  with  decisive 
victory  and  the  conquest  of  the  world  for  Christ. 
They  are  presented  with  the  profound — almost  over- 
whelming— conviction  that  the  questions  discussed 
are,  for  the  ministry  and  the  Church,  life-and-death 
questions  that  every  preacher  of  the  Gospel  should, 
for  the  glory  of  the  Master  and  for  the  sake  of  a  lost 
world,  take  up,  consider  carefully,  and  settle  in  the 
light  of  the  Word  of  God,  without  an  hour's  delay. 
They  have  been  expressed  in  the  popular  and  practical 
form  that  permits  the  repetition  and  even  reiteration 
of  important  facts  and  principles  that  require  empha- 
sis by  presentation  in  various  aspects  and  relations. 
They  are  addressed  especially  to  preachers  of  the 
Gospel,  for  the  reason  that  upon  the  preacher  as 
leader  in  the  work  of  the  Church,  more  than  upon  all 
else,  will  depend  the  final  result. 

New  York  City,  April,  1896. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     The  Preacher's  Present  Commission,     .        .  .        i 

II.    The  Preacher's  Message, 53 

III.  The  Preacher  and  His  Furnishing,      .        .  .     130 

IV.  The  Preaching  for  these  Times,       .        .        .  205 
V.    The  Preacher  as  a  Pastor  in  these  Times,  304 


CHRIST'S  TRUMPET-CALL  TO  THE 
MINISTRY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  PREACHER'S  PRESENT  COMMISSION. 

The  Apostle  Paul  wrote  to  the  Christians  at 
Corinth: 

"  For  after  that,  in  the  wisdom  of  God,  the  world  by  wisdom  knew 
not  God  ;  it  pleased  God  by  the  foolishness  oi  preaching  to  save  them 
that  believe," 

''Preaching"  is,  therefore,  the  one  supreme  require- 
ment of  this  lost  world;  and  the  "preacher"  is  thus 
lifted  to  the  supreme  place  of  initiative,  leadership, 
dignity,  and  responsibility  in  the  work  of  Christ  for 
the  lost  world.  The  preacher's  position  and  work, 
always  peculiarly  important,  have  assumed  vastly 
more  of  importance  in  the  present  crisis  of  the  en- 
terprise of  the  Church  in  carrying  out  the  Great 
Commission.  The  preacher  who  at  all  takes  in  the 
situation  can  hardly  help  asking,  in  view  of  this 
crisis,  such  questions  as  the  following: 

What  is  the  present  immediate  requirement  that  the 
Great  Commission  makes  of  me  as  a  preacher? 

What    is    the    message    that    must    constitute  the 


2        Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

burden  of  my  preaching  in  order  to  meet  that  re- 
quirement? 

What  is  the  special  furnishing  that  will  best  fit  me 
for  the  effective  delivery  of  that  message  ? 

What  must  be  the  aim,  and  what  the  characteris- 
tics, of  the  preaching  that  will  meet  the  demands  of 
the  times  and  the  crisis  in  saving  men  and  the  world  ? 

What  must  be  my  character  as  pastor,  and  what  the 
character  of  my  work  of  pastoral  oversight  and  direc- 
tion, in  order  that  I  may  do  what  needs  to  be  done  for 
those  saved  through  preaching  ? 

There  is  obviously  nothing  new  in  the  form  of  the 
preacher's  commission.     Its  language  is  the  same  to- 

The  Great      day  as    in    the    Apostolic    age.      It    is 

Commission,  familiarly  known  as  ''  The  Great  Com- 
mission." It  came  originally  from  the  Head  of  the 
Church,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  himself.  As  recorded 
by  the  Evangelist  Matthew,  it  reads: 

"All  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  in  earth.  Go  ye 
therefore  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost :  teaching  them  to 
observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you.  And,  lo,  I 
am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world.     Amen." 

As  recorded  by  the  Evangelist  Mark,  it  reads: 

"  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature. 
He  that  believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved  ;  but  he  that  believeth 
not  shall  be  damned." 

These  are  certainly  among  the  most  solemn  words 
ever  addressed  to  a  company  of  mortals.  They  take 
hold  on  life  and  death;  they  involve  the  issues  of  the 
judgment  and  of  eternity.  The  mission  to  which  they 
give  expression  is  the  most  important  ever  entrusted 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  3 

to  men.  It  is  the  evangelizing  of  the  whole  race  of 
lost  men,  the  making  over  of  the  world  in  right- 
eousness. 

That  mission  was  doubtless  intended,  in  a  very  real 
and  pregnant  sense,  not  for  the  Apostles  only,  but  for 
all  the  disciples  and  followers  of  Jesus  there  present 
when  they  were  uttered,  and  for  all  the  Church  of  the 
ages  as  represented  by  them.  But,  with  as  great  cer- 
tainty, in  the  highest  and  most  pregnant  sense,  they 
were  intended  especially  for  those  who  were  to  be 
officially  the  Apostles,  or  **  Missionaries,"  of  our  Lord 
to  the  world,  and  for  all  those  in  the  ages  since  who 
have  officially  represented,  or  who  now  officially 
represent,  the  Master  in  the  great  work  of  the  Church 
for  the  salvation  of  mankind.  To  these  has  been 
entrusted  the  special  task  of  directing,  leading,  in- 
spiring, and  impelling  the  Church   in  its  great  work. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  enter  into  the  general  exposi- 
tion of  the  language  of  this  commission,  nor  to  show 
the  application  of  the  whole  to  the  j^^  Special 
Church  at  large  in  its  entire  member-  Points, 
ship.  Preachers  are  familiar  with  these  things; 
besides,  it  would  be  quite  aside  from  the  present  pur- 
pose. That  purpose  requires,  as  preliminary  to  its 
statement,  two  points  of  special  significance  and 
application.  These  preliminary  points  are  involved 
or  expressed  in  two  words  of  the  preacher's  commis- 
sion :   '*Go  ye." 

The  verb  *'Go"is  in  the  imperative  mode.  The 
words  are  words  not  simply  of  permission  nor  of 
entreaty,  but  of  comma?td.  As  Christ  utters  them  to 
the  Church  and  to  the  ministry,  he  implies  that  he  has 
a  claim  upon  those  whom  he  addresses,  for  the 
employment  of  themselves,  and  for  the  use  of  all  their 


4  CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

powers  and  possessions,  in  the  great  work  of  evan- 
gelizing the  world.  He  bases  his  claim  upon  the 
absolute  authority  given  him  for  the  conquest  of  the 
world  in  redemption.  This  claim  of  Christ  assuredly 
rests  upon  the  highest  conceivable  grounds,  whether 
scripturally  or  rationally  considered.  The  Church 
and  the  ministry  are  Christ's  by  right  of  production  in 
creation,  by  virtue  of  his  essential  Deity;  by  right  of 
purchase  in  redemption,  by  virtue  of  his  vicarious  and 
sacrificial  death;  and  by  right  of  gift,  by  virtue  of 
the  sinner's  voluntary  consecration  at  his  conversion. 
They  can  only  get  away  from  the  duty  by  repudiating 
Christ's  right  to  them  as  Creator,  by  denying  his 
claim  as  Redeemer,  and  by  casting  off  their  vows  of 
fealty  to  Christ  as  Lord  in  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
and  casting  away  with  these  their  hope  of  salvation. 

The  command  is  issued  to  them  to  carry  out  the 
Great  Commission.  As  addressed  to  the  Churchy 
that  includes  and  is  summed  up  in  the  requirement 
to  furnish  the  messengers  of  salvation  to  carry  the  Gospel 
into  all  the  world,  and  to  supply  the  pecuniary  means  and 
the  moral  and  spii'itual  support  needed  to  sustain  them  in 
the  completion  of  the  world-wide  task  assigjied  by  the 
command.  As  addressed  to  the  ministry,  it  includes 
the  requirement  that,  as  the  messengers  and  mouth- 
pieces of  Christ  and  the  official  leaders  and  guides 
of  the  Church,  they  shall  take  up  the  great  task  and 
push  it  to  its  completion,  keeping  the  commission  always 
before  the  Church,  and  instructing,  guiding,  leading, 
inspiring,  and  impelling  her  to  the  accomplishment  of 
her  divinely  assigned  task.  And  so  upon  the  preacher 
rests  the  supreme  responsibility  in  the  work  of  the 
Gospel,  the  duty  of  making  the  Kingdom  of  Christ 
coextensive  with  the  world  of  mankind. 


THE    PREACHER  S   PRESENT    COMMISSION.  5 

The  command,  "Go  ye,"  is  in  tht present  tense^  not 
in  the  future.  That  means,  **  Do  it  now.''  It  means, 
''  Do  it,  ye  to  whom  the  words  are  addressed."  It 
has  been  taken  up  by  the  Church  and  the  ministry 
through  the  ages,  as  presently  and  directly  applicable 
to  them.  That  command,  with  the  obligation  it  car- 
ries for  the  salvation  of  the  lost  world,  has  rested 
upon  every  generation  of  the  Christian  membership 
and  the  Christian  ministry,  from  the  beginning  until 
to-day;  and  Christ  has  held  every  generation  respon- 
sible from  the  beginning  until  now — unless  it  could 
give  the  best  of  reasons  for  not  fulfilling  the  require- 
ments of  the  Great  Commission.  If,  in  any  particular 
age  or  generation,  the  Church  and  her  messengers 
have  been  able  to  give  a  valid  reason  for  failure  to 
accomplish  the  appointed  task  well,  either  from  lack 
of  men  or  lack  of  means  or  lack  of  opportunity, 
the  reason  has  been  so  far  accepted  and  approved. 
The  means  of  the  Church  may  have  been  limited;  the 
world  of  heathendom  may  have  been  inaccessible  to 
Christendom;  the  nations  may  have  been  closed  to 
the  Gospel — these  and  other  excuses  have  been 
reasonably  urged  in  extenuation  of  past  failures. 
The  past  has  been  able  to  give  at  least  a  partial 
reason  for  lack  of  complete  success  in  this  so  great 
enterprise;  and  beyond  that,  and  so  far  as  its  reasons 
have  not  been  adequate,  it  has  suffered  even  to  judg- 
ment for  those  failures. 

Does  Christ  demand  of  the  Church  that  she  shall  give 
the  Gospel  to  all  the  world  now,  in  this  present  genera- 
tion to  which  we  belong,  which  we  constitute,  and 
whose  responsibilities  are  ours  ? 

Does  Christ  require  of  the  preacher  that  he  shall  be  a 
leader  of  the  Church  in  immediately  evangelizing  the  world! 


6        Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

These  are  the  first  questions  that  the  preacher  of 
The  Test  ^^^  present  day  should  ask  himself  in 
Questions,  connection  with  his  commission  from 
Christ. 

In  the  past  history  of  the  Church,  two,  and  only 
two,  reasons  have  been  given — when  the  Great  Com- 
mission has  been  urged  as  a  present  duty — for  a  nega- 
tive answer  to  these  two  questions: 

First. — The  world  is  inaccessible  to  the  messengers 
of  the  Gospel. 

Second. — The  Christian  Church  can  not  furnish  the 
pecuniary  means  necessary  to  send  these  messengers 
immediately  into  all  the  world. 

Do  these  hold  as  valid  reasons  still;  or  have  they 
come  to  be  mere  pretexts  to  cover  up  the  unwilling- 
ness of  the  Church  to  obey  the  command  of  her 
Lord? 

Now  we  think  it  clear  that,  altho  the  form  of  the 
preacher's  commission  is  the  same  to-day  as  always, 
there  has  been  an  absolute  change  in  its  present  and 
immediate  requirements  and  responsibilities.  The 
world  has  changed  front.  Christendom  has  come  to 
the  fore.  The  learning  and  wealth  and  power  of  the 
world  are  in  its  hands.  God  calls  upon  the  Church 
and  the  ministry  to  complete  the  conquest  of  the  world 
for  Christ — not  one,  five,  ten,  twenty  generations 
hence,  but  absolutely  7iow,  in  this presejit generation.  The 
first  task  of  the  preacher  of  the  Gospel  in  this  age,  as 
the  bearer  of  the  Great  Commission,  is,  therefore  and 
necessarily,  to  understand  that  commission  in  its 
present  pressing  demands,  that  he  may  understand  his 
own  mission  and  responsibility  so  as  to  enter  intelli- 
gently, energetically,  and  enthusiastically  upon  his 
task  of  leadership,   inspiration,   and   impulse,   in  the 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  7 

Church,  in  the  accomplishment  of  the  work  of  evan- 
gelizing the  world.  If  he  misunderstands  the  situation 
or  fails  to  take  it  in,  he  will  be  found  wanting  in  his 
place  of  leadership  and  direction;  the  Church  will  be 
hindered  or  fail  in  her  work;  and  the  world  will  remain 
still  unevangelized  and  the  travail  of  the  Redeemer's 
soul  still  unsatisfied. 

In  answering  the  critical  questions  just  propounded, 
and  in  meeting  the  first  of  the  objections  so  often 
urged,  he  will  need  to  study  diligently  the  teaching  of 
the  Word  of  God  and  to  read  with  broad  sweep  of 
vision  the  signs  of  the  times.  He  will  find  by  such 
study  and  reading,  if  we  mistake  not,  that,  as  surely  as 
all  Scripture  and  all  providences  pointed  to  the  time 
when  the  light  of  the  first  morning  sun  shone  upon 
that  cradle  in  Bethlehem  as  'Hhe  fulness  of  times" 
for  the  Incarnation,  so  now  the  light  of  every  morning 
sun,  as  it  glances  along  the  mountain-peaks  from  east 
to  west  around  the  globe,  points  to  *'the  fulness  of 
times  "  for  the  world's  completed  redemption. 

In  meeting  the  second  objection,  he  will  need  to 
study  earnestly  the  teachings  of  the  Word  of  God  con- 
cerning the  principles  of  beneficence,  and  to  try  the 
conduct  of  the  Church  in  the  matter  of  giving  for  the 
cause  of  Christ,  in  the  light  of  the  scriptural  principles 
of  Christian  giving  and  of  the  marvelous  wealth  that 
the  present  age  has  poured  into  her  coffers. 

And  when  he  has  learned  the  true  answers  to  the 
questions  and  the  present  worthlessness  of  the  old 
objections,  the  preacher's  commission  requires  that 
he  should  see  to  it  that  the  whole  truth  in  the  matter 
should  be  made  known  to  the  Church,  and  that  the 
Church  be  roused,  as  with  trumpet-call  from  God,  to 
consider  and  take  up  the  mighty  and  glorious  task  and 


8        Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

complete  it.  That  is  the  part  of  his  commission  that 
is  new  and  for  the  living  present.  For  that,  in  this 
materialistic  and  sordid  age,  he  will  need  the  baptism 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  **  tongues  of  fire." 

We  propose  to  take  up  and  consider  somewhat  in 
detail  the  two  standing  objections,  already  adverted  to. 
The  Standing  ^^  order  to  show  their  futility,  and  at  the 
Objections,  same  time  to  make  clear  precisely  what, 
in  the  light  of  the  divine  word  and  providence,  the 
preacher's  commission  requires  him  to  proclaim  to  the 
Church,  in  the  present  crisis,  regarding  these  so  vital 
matters. 


SECTION   FIRST. 

The  Whole  World  is  Now  Accessible  to  the  Church. 

We  suggest  some  special  points,  in  order  to  help 
clear  the  field  of  vision,  and  make  manifest  the  breadth 
and  scope  of  present  Christian  and  ministerial  duty. 

I.     The  World  Now  Physically  Accessible  to  the 

Church. 

The  preacher's  commission  authorizes  and  requires 
him,  in  the  light  of  God's  providences,  to  proclaim  to 
the  delaying  Church  that  the  excuse  that  the  world  is 
physically  inaccessible  to  the  messengers  o^  the  Gos- 
pel can  no  longer  be  honestly  pleaded  for  her  delay 
in  the  work  of  evangelizing  the  world. 

This  excuse  may  once  have  been  valid;  the  obstacles 
in  the  way  may  once  have  been  actually  insuperable. 
When  the  Apostles,  the  first  Missionaries,  went  out 
into  the  Roman  Empire  with  their  message  fresh  from 


THE   PREACHER  S   PRESENT    COMMISSION.  9 

the  lips  of  the  Master,  they  found  that  the  Roman  had 
cast  up  highways  for  them  across  the  Empire  and  that 
his  law  was  omnipotent  within  the  limits  of  his  sway. 
But  through  the  vast  reaches  of  the  heathen  world 
beyond,  there  were  no  highways  and  no  all-reaching 
and  powerful  law.  Later,  when  the  empire  crumbled, 
paganism  came  in  like  a  flood  and  seemed  to  sweep 
away  much  of  what  was  best,  in  destroying  the  much 
that  was  evil — leaving  centuries  of  chaos  and  darkness 
to  settle  down  upon  what  had  been  the  civilized  world. 
The  great  world  was  then  physically  inaccessible. 

But  a  most  remarkable  series  of  providences,  reach- 
ing over  the  Christian  ages,  has  made  all  the  world 
physically  accessible  to  Protestant  Chris-  ^he  Nature 
tendom  of  to-day.  In  Psalm  cxi.  we  Providences, 
read  that  God  **  Hath  showed  his  people  the  power 
of  his  works,  that  he  might  give  them  the  heritage  of 
the  heathen."  That  word  has  been  fulfilled,  not  only 
in  God's  providential  dealings  with  Israel  of  old  and 
with  his  Church  in  modern  times,  but  also  in  another 
and  remarkable  sense,  in  which  the  ''power  of  God's 
works  "  may  be  understood  to  mean  the  "  forces  of 
nature."  Along  with  the  Christian  movement  of  the 
ages  and  the  other  providential  movements,  God  has 
been  revealing  to  the  nations,  especially  to  the  Chris- 
tian nations,  and  in  a  peculiar  sense  to  the  Protestant 
Christian  nations,  three  great  forces  of  nature,  by 
which  everything  has  been  transformed  and  civilization 
made  another  thing  from  what  it  was  in  the  distant 
past.  Those  three  great  forces  are  magnetism,  steam, 
and  electricity.  Each  of  these  has  had  its  mission  in 
the  great  plan  of  God,  in  making  the  world  physically 
accessible  to  the  Gospel  message. 

It  may  properly  be  admitted  that,  to  begin  with,  in 


lo      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

the  early  centuries,  the  world,  especially  beyond  the 
Roman  Empire,  was  unknown  and  inaccessible.  God 
revealed  to  man — no  one  knows  how  or  when  or  where — 
the  application  of  magnetism  in  the  mariner's  compass, 
and,  with  that  as  his  guide,  man  went  out  over  the 
earth  in  his  work  of  discovery,  and  in  process  of  time 
it  became  a  known  world.  At  the  opening  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  a.  d.,  about  all  the  known  world 
was  a  little  strip  of  land  around  the  Mediterranean  Sea. 
But  magnetism,  in  the  mariner's  compass,  in  the  next 
three  centuries  practically  opened  the  whole  world  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  civilized  nations. 

In  due  time,  after  the  Reformation,  with  the 
awakened  and  earnest  life  of  the  Christian  Church, 
there  came  the  need  for  enlarged  facilities  for  com- 
merce and  more  rapid  intercommunication  among 
the  nations.  It  was  then,  when  the  missionary  idea 
began  to  take  possession  of  men's  hearts,  that  God 
gave  to  man  the  knowledge  of  the  application  of 
steam,  in  the  steam-engine,  to  prepare  the  way  for  such 
increased  intercourse.  The  bearing  of  this  provi- 
dential gift  upon  the  problems  of  modern  evangeliza- 
tion may  readily  be  seen.  It  is  to  be  observed  that 
the  knowledge  of  this  power  of  steam  was  not  given  to 
the  heathen  nations,  nor  to  the  Mohammedan  nations. 
It  was  not  given  first  to  the  Roman  Catholic  nations; 
and  it  has  not  been  largely  applied  by  them.  They 
are  not  to-day  employing  one-fourth  as  much  steam- 
power  as  is  employed  by  the  Protestant  nations.  The 
gift  was  reserved  until  the  Greater  Spain,  the  Greater 
Portugal,  and  the  Greater  France  were  passing  away, 
and  the  Greater  Britain,  representing  Protestant 
Christendom,  had  come  to  the  front.  And  all  this 
wonderful  power  of  steam  is  to-day  mainly    in  the 


THE    PREACHERS    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  II 

hands  of  the  Protestant  nations.-  Steam  began  the 
work  of  bringing  the  world  closer  together  and  making 
it  easily  accessible — the  world  that  was  before  inacces- 
sible, even  after  it  had  been  made  known  through  the 
mariner's  compass.  This  was  a  marvelous  step  for- 
ward in  the  work  of  preparing  for  the  evangelization 
of  the  world. 

Following  the  revelation  of  magnetism  and  steam 
there  has  come,  in  this  age,  that  of  a  new  force — elec- 
tricity, to  be  employed  as  an  agency  in  bringing  the 
nations  of  the  earth  together  into  practical  unity.  This 
new  force  of  nature  promises  to  be  the  great  motor  of 
the  world  for  the  coming  generation,  to  cheapen  trans- 
portation and  intercourse,  and  to  help  in  annihilating 
the  vast  interspaces  that  have  hitherto  kept  the 
nations  apart.  It  promises  to  make — is  already  mak- 
ing— revolutions  in  comparison  with  which  what  has 
been  accomplished  by  magnetism  and  steam  can  not  but 
appear  insignificant.  We  have  already  seen  the  tele- 
graph and  the  telephone  advance  in  their  reach,  from 
the  **  short-distance "  to  the  *Mong-distance  ";  until 
men  can  literally  speak  their  messages  across  a  conti- 
nent or  under  a  sea,  in  their  own  distinct  and  clear 
tones. 

God  in  his  providence  has  been  making  this  three- 
fold revelation  of  his  power  to  his  people,  that  he 
might  give  them  the  ''heritage  of  the  heathen." 
Christ  has,  so  to  speak,  been  gathering  all  the  world 
into  one  mighty  audience-chamber,  to  the  remotest 
aisles  of  which  every  word  for  Christ  may  reach;  and 
he  is  now  waiting  for  the  Church  to  look  this  condi- 
tion of  things  in  the  face,  and  to  acknowledge  that, 
however  it  may  have  been  in  the  past  ages  or  genera- 
tions, the   excuse   that   the   world  is  an  inaccessible 


12         CHRIST'S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

world  can  now  no  longer  be  honestly  pleaded  at  the 
bar  of  God,  and  that  it  can  not  be  regarded  as  worthy 
of  serious  consideration  even  by  intelligent  men. 

II.     The  World  Governmentally  Open  to  the 

Church. 

The  preacher's  commission  authorizes  him,  in  the 
light  of  God's  providences,  to  proclaim  to  the  dilatory 
Church  that  the  old  excuse,  that  heathenism  is  govern- 
mentally  closed  to  missionary  effort,  no  longer  holds 
at  the  bar  of  reason. 

When,  about  fifty  years  ago.  Dr.  John  Harris  wrote 
the  prize  essay  entitled,  ''The  Great  Commission," — 
the  most  eloquent  and  stirring  appeal  that  has  been 
made  to  the  modern  Church  in  behalf  of  missions, — 
he  proclaimed  with  almost  prophetic  foresight  the 
dawning  of  a  new  era,  and  summoned  with  almost 
Apostolic  fervor  Christ's  followers  to  the  rescue  of 
the  world  from  sin  and  Satan.  At  that  time  the  more 
earnest  Christians  were  gathering,  from  month  to 
month,  to  pray  in  concert  for  the  breaking  down  of 
the  barriers  imposed  by  the  governments  of  the 
nations,  Roman  Catholic  and  Pagan,  to  the  spread  of 
the  true  Gospel.  These  nations  were  then  every- 
where substantially  closed  against  evangelical  Chris- 
tianity— the  whole  force  of  the  governments  being 
arrayed  against  it  and  on  the  side  of  error.  Many  are 
now  living  who  can  recollect  when  the  ''Monthly 
Concert  of  Prayer  for  Missions  "  was  introduced  into 
the  churches.  The  Christian  Church  prayed  unitedly 
for  the  opening  of  the  world  to  Christianity. 

In  answer  to  this  prayer  God's  providence  has  been 
moving  in  a  most  wonderful  way  in  breaking  down  the 


THE   preacher's   PRESENT    COMMISSION.  13 

barriers.  The  governmental  obstacles  interposed  by 
the  heathen  nations  have  successively  been  removed 
— partly  through  internal  revolution  Hostile  Bar- 
and  partly  through  external  pressure;  riers Removed, 
partly  by  advances  of  commerce  and  the  quicken- 
ing of  thought,  and  partly  by  mighty  throes  that 
have  shaken  the  world — until  the  masses  of  Asia 
and  of  Africa  and  of  the  Islands  of  the  Sea  are  almost 
as  open  to  the  Christian  missionary  as  are  the  non- 
church-going  multitudes  in  so-called  Christian  lands. 
At  this  very  date  we  seem  to  be  witnessing  the  com- 
pletion of  this  work  in  the  far  East,  in  the  great  con- 
flict between  Japan  and  China,  that  is  already  throw- 
ing wide  open  the  gates  of  the  Hermit  Nation,  and 
that  promises  to  shatter  the  walls  that  have  hitherto 
barred  the  way  of  Christian  civilization  to  most  of  the 
four  hundred  million  inhabitants  of  the  Flowery  King- 
dom. In  the  Papal  world,  on  the  Western  Continent, 
from  Mexico  to  Patagonia,  and  on  the  Eastern  Conti- 
nent, in  Italy,  Spain,  Austria,  and  the  other  leading 
Roman  Catholic  nations,  the  religious  changes  that 
have  taken  place  in  the  same  period  have  opened  vast 
and  inviting  mission  fields  to  Protestant  Christianity. 
Men  of  this  generation  have  seen  the  lines  of  traffic 
and  intercourse,  with  power  of  magnetism,  steam,  and 
electricity,  reach  out  over  the  earth,  until  the  net- 
work of  inter-communication  has  become  well-nigh 
complete.  The  Suez  Canal  and  the  transcontinental 
and  international  railway  and  steamship  lines  have 
brought  Christianity  right  to  the  open  doors  of  all  the 
world.  The  lines  of  travel  that,  under  control  of  the 
Protestant  nations,  pass  through  the  straits  of  Gibral- 
tar and  the  Suez  Canal  to  the  Great  East,  and  those 
that  are  to  be  found  in  connection  with  the  steamers 


14      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

on  the  great  rivers,  together  with  the  great  Indian 
and  other  railways,  carry  those  who  take  them  right 
to  the  doors  of  nine  hundred  millions  of  the  human 
race  who  need  the  greater  light  that  shines  out  from 
the  open  Bible — to  the  doors  of  all  the  great  represen- 
tative Papal  nations,  Portugal,  Spain,  France,  Italy, 
Austria;  of  all  the  representative  Mohammedan 
nations,  the  Barbary  States,  the  two  Turkeys,  Egypt, 
Nubia,  the  Sudan  and  Eastern  Africa,  Arabia,  Persia; 
and  of  all  the  representative  Pagan  nations,  Afghan- 
istan, Baluchistan,  Hindustan,  India,  Farther  China, 
Japan,  Korea,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  almost 
innumerable  islands  of  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

Every  one  will  be  ready  to  admit  that  this  new 
route  has  vast  significance  for  the  commerce  of  the 

The  Route      future,  but   the    Christian  can  not  help 
of  the  World's  seeing  that  it  will  not  have  less  for  the 

Commerce.  Church  in  its  work;  for  the  very  steam- 
ships that  bear  the  traffic  of  the  world  along  the 
Mediterranean,  up  the  Nile,  the  Euphrates,  the  Indus, 
the  Ganges,  the  Brahmaputra,  the  Irrawaddy,  the 
Cambodia,  the  Yang-tse-Kiang,  and  the  Hoang-Ho, 
into  the  very  heart,  nay,  to  the  remotest  bounds,  of  all 
these  great  nations,  are  ready  to  bear  the  missionaries 
of  the  Church  to  the  same  regions.  The  man  of  most 
exalted  imagination  can  have  but  an  inadequate  view 
of  the  vast  import,  to  the  cause  of  Christ,  of  this  new 
step  in  the  onward  movement  of  Providence. 

Viewed  in  its  relation  to  the  population  of  the  globe, 
its  bearings  appear  no  less  striking  and  important  than 
when  viewed  in  its  relations  to  the  nationalities. 
Estimating  the  total  population  of  the  globe  in  round 
numbers  at  fifteen  hundred  millions,  more  than  nine 
hundred  millions  are  found  along  this  great  thorough- 


THE   PREACHER  S   PRESENT    COMMISSION.  15 

fare!  Of  the  remaining  millions,  the  one  half,  along 
Northern  Europe  and  Asia,  are  under  the  control  of 
the  Protestant  and  Greek  Churches.  The  remaining 
millions  inhabit  the  portions  of  America  and  Africa 
peculiarly  under  the  moral  influence  of  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain. 

Let  the  fact  be  emphasized,  then,  that  the  Protes- 
tant Churches,  with  all  their  new  facilities  for  giving 
the  world  the  Gospel,  now  for  the  first  protestantism 
time  in  history^  stand  foremost  at  every  at  the 
one  of  the  open  doors  of  the  world.  A  ^P®^  ^°°^^' 
single  month  will  soon  suflice  to  place  a  band  of  mis- 
sionaries far  within  the  bounds  of  the  most  remote 
of  these  nations.  The  inquiry  forces  itself  upon 
every  one  who  gives  this  subject  a  moment's  thought: 
What  does  it  all  mean  ?  This  almost  incomprehensible 
increase  in  the  facilities  for  propagating  the  Gospel 
among  the  unevangelized  races,  and  the  giving  of  them 
all  into  the  hands  of  the  leading  Protestant  states — do 
not  these  providences  point  Protestant  Christians  to 
,a  special  duty?  The  creation  of  these  facilities  within 
the  memory  of  men  still  living — does  it  not  point  to 
present  duty  f 

Before  the  imperious  demands  of  commerce  the 
reluctant  monarchs  of  the  earth  have  withdrawn  the 
barriers  of  government,  and  thrown  open  the  portals 
of  their  nations  to  the  trade  of  Christendom,  and  the 
missionary  of  the  Church  has  to-day  practically  free 
access  with  the  Gospel  to  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  The 
commission  of  the  preacher  requires  him,  therefore, 
to  announce  and  to  demonstrate  to  the  slow-going 
Church  that  she  is  henceforth  barred  from  pleading, 
as  an  excuse  for  her  delay  in  evangelizing  the  world, 
that  impassable  governmental  barriers  block  the  way 


i6      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

of  her  messengers.  That  excuse  has  been  shown  to  be 
no  longer  valid  at  the  bar  of  reason,  and  it  must  be 
worse  than  vain  at  the  bar  of  God. 


III.      Roman   Catholicism   no   Longer    Dominates 

the  World. 

The  preacher's  commission  warrants  him,  in  the 
light  of  God's  providence,  in  proclaiming  to  the  hesi- 
tating Church  of  Christ  that  the  excuse  that  Roman 
Catholicism  dominates  the  world,  however  true  it  may 
have  been  in  the  past,  is  no  longer  valid  and  can  no 
longer  be  urged. 

A    series    of    remarkable   providences    in    modern 

times   has  brought    Protestant    Christendom    practi- 

The  Columbian  cally    into    commercial,  political,  moral, 

Providences,  and  religious  control  of  the  world.  These 
past  four  hundred  years  and  more,  since  Columbus 
found  the  way  to  the  New  World,  have  been  marvel- 
ous years.  It  is  well  to  stop  and  think  what  has 
taken  place  in  them.  In  recent  years  Columbus  has 
been  the  one  great  figure  brought  into  prominence,  in 
connection  with  this  Continent,  by  the  Columbian 
Exposition.  In  the  centuries  since  the  discovery  of 
America,  the  entire  face  of  the  Christian  world  has 
been  changed. 

Four  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  there  was  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  covering  Europe — that  was 
practically  the  extent  of  Christendom;  and  there  was 
the  Mohammedan  world  surrounding  it  on  the  south 
and  east;  while  the  two,  in  military  array,  were  face  to 
face  at  Constantinople  and  Grenada.  It  was  a  question 
whether  Roman  and  Greek  Christendom  would  conquer 
the  Mohammedan  world,  or  the  Mohammedan  world 


THE   PREACHER  S   PRESENT    COMMISSION.  1 7 

would  conquer  Roman  and  Greek  Christendom,  the 
Christendom  of  that  day.  When  the  Turk  took 
Constantinople,  in  1453,  men  thought  that  the  world 
had  almost  come  to  an  end.  It  seemed  the  great 
disaster  of  all  time.  The  Turk,  in  getting  possession 
of  Constantinople,  sat  down  across  the  gateway  to 
India,  whence  riches  came;  and  the  lines  of  commerce 
were  in  his  control  and  the  riches  of  the  world  at  his 
feet.  Europe  was  shut  out,  and  Christendom  shut 
out,  from  that  source  of  wealth.  But  the  fall  of  the 
Eastern  Empire  spurred  the  Roman  Christendom  in 
the  West  to  new  and  redoubled  effort,  and  Spain, 
under  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  aided  by  the  military 
genius  of  Gongalo  de  Cordova,  conquered  Grenada 
and  expelled  the  Moor  from  Western  Europe,  only 
forty  years  after  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  and  so 
became  the  foremost  power  in  Europe.  A  great 
nation,  trained  and  disciplined  into  strength  and 
enterprise  and  chivalrous  spirit  by  seven  hundred 
years  of  warfare  with  the  Moors,  was  thus  compelled 
to  seek  new  channels  of  adventure  and  a  broader  field 
of  action.  It  was  these  two  great  events,  the  one  in 
the  Orient  and  the  other  in  the  Occident,  that  changed 
the  destiny  of  the  modern  world. 

As  one  result  of  them,  we  have  the  reaching  out 
over  the  world,  until  then  unknown,  by  the  great 
voyagers  of  the  next  seventy  years  after  the  fall  of 
Constantinople,  and  thirty  years  after  the  conquest  of 
Grenada.  These  events  indirectly  gave  the  inspira- 
tion, the  impulse.  They  rendered  it  necessary  that 
those  three  great  voyages  of  all  time  should  be  made. 
In  1492  Columbus,  seeking  India  by  a  new  way,  found 
this  New  World,  a  New  India.  In  1497  Vasco  da 
Gama,  again  seeking  India,  found  the  way  arpund  the 


20         CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

must,  humanly  speaking,  be  accomplished.  Protes- 
tantism is  practically  supreme.  The  preacher  must 
utter  no  uncertain  sound  on  this  subject,  but  must 
leave  the  Church  stripped  of  its  old  excuse,  for  God 
himself  has  made  it  utterly  baseless  and  worthless. 

IV.     The  Means  Necessary  for   the  Work  in 
THE  Hands  of  the  Church. 

The  preacher's  commission  requires  him,  in  the 
light  of  God's  providence  and  of  his  Word,  to  pro- 
claim to  a  covetous  Church  that  her  old  excuse,  that 
her  poverty  stands  in  the  way  of  her  fulfilment  of  her 
mission,  and  that  the  Lord's  money-tithes  are  inade- 
quate to  the  work,  has  come  to  be  an  insult  to  God, 
to  cover  up  a  positive  and  long  continued  failure  to 
meet  this  plain  requirement. 

Christians  have  in  the  past  pleaded  their  poverty  as 
a  reason  for  not  literally  obeying  Christ's  last  com- 
mand. They  have  often  claimed  that  proper  pro- 
vision for  the  present  necessities  of  life,  and  the  need 
of  'Maying  by  something  against  a  rainy  day,"  have 
exhausted  their  means  and  left  nothing — at  best  a  mere 
pittance — to  give  to  the  work  of  missions  at  home  and 
abroad,  for  the  saving  of  mankind.  That  this  has 
usually  been  little  more  than  a  mere  hypocritical 
pretext,  the  past  experience  of  such  bodies  of  Chris- 
tians as  the  Moravians  clearly  shows.  The  time  has 
now  fully  come  when  the  preacher  needs  to  show  the 
Christian  Church,  beyond  possibilij:y  of  gainsaying, 
that  the  state  of  things  on  which  she  based  her  old 
excuse  has  passed  away,  and  that  the  theory  of  Chris- 
tian giving  by  which  she  has  directed  her  conduct  has 
no  foundation  in  the  Word  of  God. 


THE    PREACHERS    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  21 

Let  it  be  emphasized  that  it  is  not  the  poor  Church 
of  the  past,  but  the  niarvelously  rich  Chitrch  of  to-day, 
that  calls  for  consideration,  and  that  must  set  the  law 
and  pace  for  Christian  duty  in  the  matter  of  giving 
and  in  the  work  of  the  Gospel. 

A  silent  revolution, — a  revolution  almost  inconceiv- 
able as  we  look  back  upon  it, — that  has  been  going 
on  through  the  century,  has  resulted  in      .   ARe  o- 
throwing  vast  wealth  into  the  hands  of  lution  and  its 
Christendom,    and    especially    into    the        Causes, 
hands  of    Protestant  Christendom.     The   remarkable 
revolutions  of  the  past  fifty  years  have  been  so  numer- 
ous, and    so  silent,   that   even  the  best   ecclesiastical 
statisticians   and    financiers    scarcely    understood    the 
full  meaning  of  that  rich  Church  and  its  vast  income, 
which  so  often  enter  into  their  calculations. 

De  Quincey,  in  some  curious  investigations,  in  his 
Biographical  Essays,  has  shown  that  the  dowry  that 
Mary  Arden,  the  mother  of  Shakespeare,  brought  to  his 
father,  John  Shakespeare — the  estate  amounting  at  the 
lowest  calculation  to  ;^ioo  and  at  the  highest  to  ^^224, 
and  the  rent  amounting  at  the  lowest  to  ^8  and  at 
the  highest  to  £iA^ — was  really  a  very  respectable  for- 
tune. In  these  days,  and  that  even  after  taking  into 
account  the  difference  in  values,  so  greatly  in  favor  of 
three  centuries  ago,  such  an  income  would  be  con- 
sidered but  a  beggarly  one  for  the  most  unskilful 
boot-black.  Only  seventy-five  years  ago,  when  Cole- 
ridge refused  a  half-share  in  The  Morning  Post  and 
Courier,  with  the  emphatic  declaration  that  he  would 
not  give  up  his  country  life  with  the  lazy  reading  of 
old  folios,  for  two  thousand  times  the  income  it 
offered;  he  added  :  *' In  short,  beyond  ;^35o  a  year 
I  regard  money  as  a  real  evil."     Yet  this  would  barely 


22         CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

meet  the  wants  of  a  first-class  mechanic  of  the  present 
day. 

Manifold  causes  have  wrought  in  producing  an 
almost  fabulous  increase  in  the  wealth  of  the  Protestant 
nations,  during  the  present  century.  One  of  these  is 
found  in  the  fact  that  steam  furnishes  the  nervous 
power  and  steel  the  muscle  of  modern  material  civili- 
zation. The  industrial  arts  have  thus  been  revolu- 
tionized. The  able-bodied  working  population  of  the 
globe  is  about  200,000,000  ;  that  is,  the  globe  can 
furnish,  in  the  form  of  productive  man-power,  about 
that  number  of  days'  work  in  a  single  day.  A  century 
ago,  that  constituted  the  major  part  of  the  work  that 
could  be  done  by  mankind  in  a  day.  At  the  present 
time  Great  Britain  alone,  by  machine-power  with 
steam  and  electricity,  is  able  to  do  from  five  to  ten 
times  that  amount  of  work;  while  the  United  States 
can  probably  do  even  more,  and  Germany  is  making 
rapid  advance  in  the  same  direction.  This  develop- 
ment of  productive  power  has  been  the  source  of  an 
immense  increase  of  wealth. 

Another  cause  may  be  found  in  the  commerce, 
that  has  grown  so  immensely  in  consequence  of  this 
enlarged  productive  power,  and  that  has  made  the 
world  chiefly  tributary  to  the  leading  Protestant 
nationalities. 

A  third  cause  is  to  be  noted  in  those  striking  provi- 
dences that  seem  to  indicate  the  purpose  of  God  to 
give  the  world  to  Protestant  Christendom,  among 
which  may  be  enumerated  those  that  in  a  century 
have  increased  the  subjects  of  the  British  Empire  from 
13,000,000  to  almost  400,000,000;  those  that  have 
raised  Prussia  from  the  position  of  an  insignificant 
state  to  a  first  place  on  the  map  of  Europe,  at  the 


THE   PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  23 

head  of  the  German  Empire  with  its  50,000,000  of 
people  ;  and  those  that  have  estabHshed  on  these 
western  shores  our  great  Republic  with  its  almost 
70,000,000  of  free  people,  mostly  Christian  and  Prot- 
estant. 

Most  marked  perhaps  of  all  has  been  the  gift  of  the 
great    gold    and     silver  fields — Australia,    California, 
South    Africa,    and    the    Ural    region—   rpj^e  Treasure- 
to  the  Protestant  or  anti-papal  nations.     Fields  of  the 
If  these  deposits  of  the  precious  metals        World, 
had  been  discovered  a  little  earlier,  they  would  have 
gone  into  the  hands  of  people  holding  other  religions, 
and  would  have  been  used — as  the  wealth   that  Spain 
wrested  from  Mexico  and   Peru   was   used  to  spread 
Roman   Catholicism — for   the  dissemination  of  those 
other  religions.      But  they  were  reserved  until  Prot- 
estant Christendom  was  at  the  front  and  had  substan- 
tial control,  and  they  were  then  providentially  given 
into  the  hands  of  the  foremost  Protestant  Christian 
nations. 

There  have  been  some  strange  things  in  connection 
with  the  opening  up  of  these  vast  stores  of  riches. 
Dr.  Stone  gave  the  writer,  several  years  ago,  a  little 
incident  learned  in  connection  with  the  Historical 
Society  in  San  Francisco,  that  will  show  how  wonder- 
ful these  providences  have  sometimes  been.  Before 
we  had  taken  California  from  Mexico,  or  about  that 
time,  the  Jesuit  Fathers  became  aware,  through  the 
Indians,  of  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  gold-mines  in 
that  region.  They  surveyed  the  mines,  prepared  their 
maps,  and  took  ship  for  Spain  just  before  California 
came  into  our  hands,  to  inform  the  Spanish  govern- 
ment and  the  authorities  abroad  of  their  wonderful 
discovery.     But  those  charts  and  those  Fathers  were 


24  CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

never  heard  of  again!  Had  they  reached  the  other 
side,  Spain  would  doubtless  have  grasped  California 
with  a  firm  grip,  or  would  have  aided  Mexico  to  hold 
fast  to  it,  to  prevent  it  from  coming  into  the  hands  of 
the  United  States. 

The  increase  of  wealth  resulting  from  these  and  other 
causes  has  almost  outrun  accurate  statistics,  and  even 
imagination.  So  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  ascertain 
by  somewhat  careful  inquiry,  an  annual  income  of  a 
million  dollars  is  more  common  on  this  side  of  the 
ocean  now  than  was  an  income  of  fifty  thousand  half  a 
century  ago.  Three  centuries  ago,  the  ransom  of  the 
Inca  Atahualpa,  paid  to  that  Spanish  robber  and 
butcher  Pizarro,  turned  the  brain  of  all  Europe  by  its 
magnitude;  yet  it  was  less  than  the  annual  income  of 
many  of  our  merchant  princes  as  the  reward  of  legiti- 
mate business,  and  hardly  a  tithe  of  what  many  of 
our  speculators  manage  to  get  hold  of  by  illegitimate 
business. 

The  increase  of  national  wealth  in  the  aggregate  has 
kept  pace  with  that  of  individual  wealth.  The  material 
2.  Results  of  progress  of  the  nation,  for  the  two  dec- 
the  Revolution,  ades  from  1850  to  1870,  will  illustrate 
the  earlier  stages  of  the  change.  The  total  wealth 
of  the  nation  in  1850  was  $7,000,000,000;  in  i860, 
$16,000,000,000  ;  in  1870,  according  to  the  estimate  of 
Special  Commissioner  Wells,  $23,000,000,000,  and, 
according  to  that  of  Judge  Kelly,  member  of  Congress 
from  Pennsylvania,  $43,000,000,000.  The  increase  in 
twenty  years,  during  five  of  which  there  was  expended 
or  wasted  in  civil  war  at  least  $10,000,000,000,  was 
therefore  somewhere  from  three  to  six  fold.  The 
gross  product  of  the  industry  of  the  country  about 
1870,   which  may  represent  its  gross  annual    income, 


THE    preacher's    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  25 

apart  from  the  annual  increase  of  aggregate  values 
just  referred  to,  Mr.  Wells  estimated  at  $6,825,000,- 
000.  He  proceeds,  however,  at  once  to  show  that  this 
"  is  an  under  rather  than  an  over  estimate";  and  in 
doing  this  gives  data  drawn  from  the  wages  of  the 
lowest  of  the  working  classes,  that  indicate  that  $8,- 
000,000,000  would  be  a  very  moderate  estimate.  These 
statistics  show  that  the  product  of  the  industry  of  the 
nation  in  1870  equaled  or  surpassed  the  entire  value  of 
all  its  property  twenty  years  before.  A  like  marvel- 
ous increase  took  place  in  the  wealth  of  Great  Britain 
and  an  almost  equal  increase  in  the  case  of  some  other 
nations.  The  last  twenty-five  years  has  witnessed 
the  continuance  of  this  astonishing  pace  of  material 
prosperity,  as  might  readily  be  shown  by  statistics. 

In  view  of  these  extraordinary  facts,  the  question 
comes  home  with  overwhelming  force.  Why  has  God 

so   flooded   the  Protestant  nations  with   „  « 

3.  Consequent 

wealth,  and  done  it  in  these  same  years      Christian 
in  which  the  way  has  been  opened  for  the         ^^^y* 
Gospel  into  all  nations,  and  Protestant  Christendom 
brought  to  stand  foremost  at  all  these  openings  ? 

It  cannot  be  claimed  w^ith  a  shadow  of  justice,  or 
even  a  show  of  plausibility,  that  this  vastly  enlarged 
wealth  is  required  for  increased  expenses  of  living. 
Nor  can  it  be  claimed,  with  any  greater  show  of  justice, 
that  either  the  Scriptures  or  human  experience  war- 
rants the  hoarding  up  of  these  vast  sums  in  private 
coffers.  Mr.  Lewis  Tappan,  w^ell  known  once  as  a 
Christian  merchant,  and  later  as  secretary  of  one  of 
the  benevolent  societies  of  the  country,  in  his  little 
tract,  ''  Is  it  Right  to  be  Rich  ?"  gives  a  forcible  ex- 
hibition of  the  teachings  of  the  Scriptures  on  this  sub- 
ject, in  connection  with  many   striking  corroborative 


26      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

facts  drawn  from  his  extended  observation  and  experi- 
ence— an  exhibition,  the  acquaintance  with  which  can 
not  but  be  helpful,  even  if  one  is  not  prepared  to  in- 
dorse all  its  presentations.  How  dangerous  this 
unscriptural  hoarding  of  millions  is,  to  the  possessors 
of  great  wealth  and  to  their  families,  any  one  may 
learn  by  observation. 

In  short,  nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that  the  Head 
of  the  Church  has  not  placed  this  vast  wealth,  just  at 
this  juncture,  in  the  hands  of  his  stewards,  the  members 
of  the  Christian  Church,  for  the  purpose  of  allowing 
them  to  indulge  in  enervating  luxuries  without  stint,  or 
to  pamper  their  families,  or  for  the  purpose  of  giving 
them  opportunity  to  store  up  millions  of  rusting  treas- 
ure for  their  children  to  use  and  abuse.  If  there  is 
any  meaning  in  this  wondrous  chain  of  providences, 
taken  together  and  in  connection  with  the  truths  of 
God's  absolute  ownership  of  everything  and  the 
Christian's  stewardship,  that  meaning  must  be  this  : 
that  Christ  does  not  purpose  that  the  thousands  of 
millions  of  the  race  for  whom  his  blood  was  shed 
shall  perish  without  the  Gospel;  and  that,  moreover, 
he  has  rolled  upon  the  Church  of  this  very  time  the 
responsibility  of  furnishing  the  entire  pecuniary  means 
requisite  for  the  work  in  its  completeness,  at  home  and 
abroad,  the  world  over.  He  who  has  the  authority, 
given  him  by  the  Father,  to  call  for  the  gold  at  any 
time,  calls  now.  Can  the  Church,  and  especially  its 
opulent  members,  give  a  valid  reason  for  not  furnish- 
ing the  Lord's  treasury  with  all  that  is  needed  now? 


THE   PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  27 

V.  The  Needed  Messengers  and  Machinery 

Ready. 

The  preacher's  commission,  in  the  light  of  the 
Divine  Word  and  providence,  and  of  existing  indus- 
trial and  financial  conditions,  demands  that  he  should 
warn  a  worldly  Church  that  the  old  excuse,  that  the 
messengers  and  the  organizing  and  administrative 
power  for  such  speedy  completion  of  the  work  of  the 
Gospel,  are  lacking,  has  lost  all  force  and  validity. 

It  may  be  true  that,  but  a  short  time  ago,  the 
Church  was  unable  to  spare  the  messengers  needed  for 
the  immediate  accomplishment  of  such  a  work.  It 
may  be  true  that,  one  hundred  years  ago,  there  was 
need  of  well-nigh  all  the  work  of  all  the  able-bodied 
men  in  the  world,  to  take  care  of  the  world  and  meet 
the  pressing  necessities  of  mankind.  One  hundred 
years  ago  there  were  two  hundred  millions  of  able- 
bodied  men,  or  rather,  there  were  enough  in  the 
world  to  do  the  work  of  two  hundred  millions  of  able- 
bodied  men.  That  was  the  working  power  of  the 
world  then.  To-day,  by  the  aid  of  steam  and  elec- 
tricity, as  has  been  seen,  the  able-bodied  men  repre- 
sented in  the  working  power  of  this  country  and  Great 
Britain  alone,  are  reaching  up  into  the  billions. 
Through  these  wonderful  developments  in  the  provi- 
dence of  God,  we,  in  this  country,  can  easily  do  the 
work  of  more  than  a  billion  men  instead  of  the  work 
of  a  few  millions,  say  ten  millions,  that  we  could 
formerly  do;  and  we  are  able  at  will  to  increase  that 
ability  indefinitely.  And  it  is  so,  to  a  great  extent, 
with  the  other  nations,  especially  the  Protestant 
nations.  Vast  multitudes  have  thus  been  set  free,  or 
may   at  pleasure  be  set  free,   from  the  necessity  of 


28      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

manual  labor  in  the  old  style — unless  reenslaved  by 
wrong  economic  principles  and  conditions. 

That  is  one  reason  why  we  have  so  many  idlers. 
God,  in  furnishing  steam  as  the  muscles  and  electricity 
as  the  nerve-power  of  this  age,  has  freed  from  press- 
ing necessity  to  labor  a  great  multitude  of  the  young 
and  of  the  old.  He  has  set  them  free  for  a  purpose; 
they  have  not  found  out  that  purpose;  and  therefore 
are  idling  away  or  playing  away  life.  The  preacher 
has  not  given  them  the  needed  light  upon  the  subject. 
Necessity  is  upon  the  Church,  for  her  self-preserva- 
tion, that  they  be  used  in  God's  way.  God,  by  his 
providences  and  his  Word,  clearly  demands  that  all 
this  work  be  devoted,  not  to  the  increase  of  wealth,  of 
the  grandeur  and  the  growth  of  our  material  civiliza- 
tion, which  would  bring  luxury  and  vice  and  death; 
but  for  his  glorious  purpose  in  the  Gospel,  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  Great  Commission. 

It  may  have  been  true,  fifty  years  ago,  that,  of  the 
vast  multitude  of  the  laity  in  the  Church,  but  few  had 
any  consciousness  of  a  call  from  Christ  to  cooperate 
actively  in  giving  the  Gospel  to  all  men,  and  that  but 
few  had  any  experience  or  even  interest  in  such  co- 
operation; but  that  is  no  longer  true.  The  great 
awakening  of  1858  was,  as  is  shown  more  fully  else- 
where, specifically  an  awakening  of  the  laity,  and  hav- 
ing every  appearance  of  being  providentially  intended 
to  bring  a  chief  and  essential  factor  in  the  Church — 
theretofore  only  in  small  degree  available — into  proper 
prominence  and  rightful  place  in  the  Christian  work  of 
these  times. 

The  period  that  has  since  elapsed  has  been  espe- 
cially a  period  for  organizing,  and  getting  into  working 
order,  the  immense  lav  forces  in  Christendom.     That 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  29 

awakening  has  inspired  the  world-wide  movement  of 
the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  of  the  Young 
People's  Society  of  Christian  Endeavor,  of  the  Epworth 
League,  and  manifold  kindred  organizations.  It  has 
compelled  the  hearty  recognition  of  the  layman,  even 
in  episcopally  organized  Churches.  It  has  entered  as 
a  powerful  factor,  and  a  principal  impelling  and  shap- 
ing force,  into  the  more  recent  evangelistic  work  of 
Mr.  Moody  and  other  Gospel  workers  of  kindred  spirit 
all  over  the  world,  great  numbers  of  whom  have  been 
simple  laymen.  It  is  an  essential  feature  in  the  pres- 
ent vast  and  rapidly  increasing  work  of  the  Salvation 
Army,  in  rousing  the  lapsed  and  submerged  classes 
throughout  the  bounds  of  Christendom.  It  has  given  a 
new  impulse  to  missions  at  home  and  abroad,  and  has 
already  led  thousands  to  consecrate  themselves  to  mis- 
sion work.  There  is  only  needed,  in  order  to  complete 
the  preparation  for  the  final  triumphant  movement 
against  the  forces  of  sin  and  Satan,  that  all  the  older 
and  wiser  heads  in  the  Church  should  be  roused  and 
incited — as  many  already  have  been — to  add  the  ex- 
perience and  wisdom  of  age  to  the  energy  and  enthusi- 
asm of  youth;  and  that  the  preacher  should  come  to 
an  understanding  of  the  situation,  and  a  readiness  to 
take  his  place  of  leadership,  in  the  great  final  cam- 
paign; in  short,  there  is  only  needed  a  new  baptism  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  to  marshal  all  the  forces  of  Christen- 
dom for  the  immediate  conquest  of  the  world  for 
Christ. 

It  may  likewise  have  been  true,  a  century  ago,  that 
the  Church  was  not  possessed  of  the  organization  or 
the  administrative  power  needed  for  the  Administrative 
speedy    completion    of   so  vast   a   work;    Power  Ready, 
but  it  is  not  true  to-day.     As  a  natural  and  necessary 


30         CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

result  of  the  immense  increase  of  wealth,  and  the  vast 
extension  of  industry,  trade,  and  commerce,  this  is  the 
age  of  organization  and  of  business  enterprise  on  the 
scale  of  the  world.  While,  therefore,  it  may  still 
remain  a  fact  that  the  preachers  of  the  Gospel  have  no 
very  large  organizing  or  business  ability,  it  is  never- 
theless a  fact,  more  pertinent  as  well  as  more  impor- 
tant, that  the  Church  has  among  her  members  and 
office-bearers  great  numbers  of  men  who  have  that 
capacity  in  a  very  unusual  degree,  tested  by  long  and 
wide  experience,  and  waiting  to  be  used  in  this  great- 
est enterprise  of  the  ages,  for  the  energetic  and  imme- 
diate urging  forward  of  the  work  to  which  Christ  calls 
now,  in  the  present  tense  of  that  command,  "  Go  ye  ! " 
Many  of  these  men  of  exceptional  abilities,  having 
tested  their  capabilities  and  accumulated  fortunes,  and 
having  become  dissatisfied  with  the  sordid  work  and 
selfish  scramble  of  money-getting,  have  retired  from 
business,  while  yet  in  the  full  vigor  and  maturity  of 
their  powers,  and  are  ignominiously  rusting  out,  or 
sinking  into  the  comparative  imbecility  that  always 
results  from  strong  powers  unused,  no  less  than  from 
the  selfish  indulgence  that  so  often  attends  upon  such 
disuse  of  powers  once  developed.  There  are  the  best 
reasons  for  believing  that  many  such  men  would  be 
only  too  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  take  up  and  plan 
some  task  of  a  nobler  order  for  the  Master,  if  it  were 
pointed  out  to  them — some  task  that  would  prevent 
them  from  becoming  nonentities  in  this  world,  and  at 
the  same  time  help  them  to  retain  and  increase  the 
strength  that  would  fit  them  for  the  larger  and  better 
tasks  of  the  other  world.  We  know,  too,  that  others 
are  consciously  and  intelligently  casting  about  for 
such  tasks  for  themselves. 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  3! 

The  late  Colonel  Elliot  F.  Shepard  was  a  conspicu- 
ous illustration  of  this.  When  about  to  enter  upon 
the  career  of  a  journalist,  he  divulged  his  plans  to  a 
distinguished  citizen  of  New  York.  Immense  wealth, 
and  the  power  of  rapidly  increasing  it,  did  not  satisfy 
him  as  a  Christian  man.  He  said:  **  A  man  can  ac- 
complish very  little  that  is  worth  his  while  with 
money."  Distinguished  position  in  the  law  and  in  so- 
ciety did  not  satisfy  him.  He  rated  fame  as  of  little 
value  in  itself,  and  as  conferring  little  added  power 
upon  a  Christian  man  for  doing  good.  He  had  deter- 
mined to  use  his  wealth  in  establishing  a  great  secular 
journal  that  should  advocate  the  application  of  Chris- 
tian principles  along  all  the  lines  of  social,  municipal, 
and  national  reform,  and  to  devote  his  time  and  influ- 
ence to  giving  it  success.  In  this  way  he  began,  and 
for  years  carried  on,  the  struggle  for  municipal  reform 
in  New  York  that  culminated  in  the  recent  great 
political  revolution  in  that  city.  At  the  same  time,  as 
a  stanch  advocate  of  the  Christian  observance  of  the 
Sabbath,  he  made  his  influence  powerfully  felt  over  the 
nation.  And  all  the  success  that  crowned  his  efforts 
in  these  directions  did  not  turn  him  away  from  his 
churchly  Christian  duties,  nor  from  a  practical  and 
princely  interest  in  the  work  of  missions,  either  at 
home — as  is  witnessed  by  church  mortages  paid  off  and 
churches  endowed — or  abroad — as  is  witnessed  by  the 
Christian  school  founded  and  endowed  by  him  for  the 
children  of  Paul's  native  city  of  Tarsus. 

The  story  of  such  lives — this  is  but  one  of 
many — narrated  by  preacher  or  press,  would  doubtless 
furnish  inspiration  for  others,  and  direct  them  to 
nobler  purpose  and  better  accomplishment  in  Christ's 
service,  until,   in   God's    own    time  and  way,  all  the 


32  CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

needed  administrative  and  organizing  ability  should  be 
subsidized  in  the  interests  of  the  Church,  in  carrying 
out  her  commission  for  a  lost  world. 

The  messengers  can  assuredly  be  had,  as  appears 
from  the  immense  volunteer  force — in  connection 
with  the  Young  People's  Society  of  Christian  En- 
deavor and  other  organizations,  and  in  the  Volunteer 
Missionary  movement — waiting  everywhere  to  be 
sent.  The  organizations  necessary  are  all  ready  and 
prepared  to  handle  the  means,  the  men,  and  the  work; 
as  may  be  seen  by  inquiring  into  the  character  and 
scope  of  the  great  missionary  societies  of  the  nation 
and  of  the  world.  The  business  and  administrative 
ability  requisite  for  so  great  a  work  is  all  to  be  had 
for  the  asking — as  may  be  seen  by  the  increasing  num- 
ber of  those  who  have  been  leaders  in  the  world's 
business,  who  are  now  ready  to  devote  something  of 
their  time  and  ability  to  this  greater  task;  or  who 
have  already  given  up  their  worldly  business  and  are 
ready  to  devote  all  their  time  and  powers  for  their  re- 
maining days  to  the  Lord's  work,  for  the  taking  up  of 
which  their  worldly  successes  have  admirably  prepared 
them. 

The  preacher  who  fails  to  understand  all  this,  and  to 

bring  home  the  truth  to  the  Church,  in  such  a  w^ay  as 

to  inspire  her  with  that  truth,   and  who 
The  ^  ' 

Preacher's  fails  to  lead  his  people  to  take  up  the 
Duty.  work  and  carry  it  forward,  will  so  far 
fail  in  fulfilling  his  commission.  That  commission 
most  assuredly  requires  him  to  let  it  be  known  with  all 
clearness  that  such  an  excuse  as  lack  of  messengers 
and  organizations  and  administrative  ability  for  the 
work,  can  no  longer  be  rationally  entertained  or 
pleaded  at  the  bar  of  human  reason  or  of  conscience, 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  ^^ 

or  innocently  presented  and  urged  at  the  bar  of  God, 
in  extenuation  of  the  sin  of  neglecting  the  command 
of  Christ. 

Let  the  preacher  understand,  then,  and  give  himself 
to  making  all  Christendom  understand,  that  God  has 
providentially  taken  away  all  the  obstacles  and  excuses 
that  have  in  the  past  delayed  the  work  of  evangelizing 
the  world;  that  the  Church  stands  to-day  in  the  pres- 
ence of  him  who  gave  her  the  commission,  without 
shadow  of  excuse  or  pretext  for  further  delay,  and 
that,  if  the  work  is  not  done  at  once,  the  Church  will 
be  responsible  for  not  doing  it. 

In  doing  this  he  will  need  to  make  clear  as  sunlight 
the  providential  drift  of  recent  years  and  the  result- 
ing situation  and  duty.  The  Church  needs,  first  of 
all,  to  have  light  on  these  subjects.  She  must  be 
made  to  see  that  God  has  set  the  task  of  the  world's 
evangelization  right  before  her,  and  be  forced  to  feel 
that  her  obligation  is  immediate  and  imperative. 

The  preacher  must  make  it  clear  that  God  has 
removed  the  old  natural  and  governmental  barriers 
that  stood  in  the  way  of  missions,  and  opened  all  the 
world  to  them;  that  he  has  brought  Protestant  Chris- 
tendom to  the  front  and  made  it  the  dominant  power 
in  the  world;  that  he  has  revealed  to  the  Protestant 
nations  the  swift  and  subtile  forces  of  nature  where- 
with to  multiply  inconceivably  its  working-power  by 
machine  production,  and  to  emancipate  vast  multitudes 
to  be  his  messengers  to  the  world,  and  that  he  has 
given  to  these  nations  all  the  great  treasure-fields  and 
most  of  the  commerce  of  the  globe.  He  must  bring 
the  Church  to  realize  the  meaning  of  the  immense 
wealth  that  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
has  poured  into  her  coffers,  and  that  will  bring  wreck 


34      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

and  perdition  if  used  for  selfish  ends  and  enjoyments 
instead  of  for  the  glory  of  God.  He  must  press  upon 
her  attention,  with  urgent  zeal,  the  significance  of  the 
Christian  unity  that  has  come  to  pervade  her  spirit 
and  her  hosts;  of  the  universal  rousing  of  the  laity  to 
a  sense  of  the  fact  that  they  are  coworkers  with  Christ 
in  saving  the  world;  of  the  world-wide  organizations 
for  effective  service  for  Christ;  and  of  the  attitude  of 
vast  numbers,  especially  of  the  young  men  and  the 
young  women,  in  waiting  to  be  sent  to  aid  in  estab- 
lishing the  Kingdom  of  God. 

All  this,  in  connection  with  the  dreadful  condition 
of  the  lost  world,  and  the  life  and  death  urgency  of 
the  work,  must  be  enforced  and  emphasized  by  the 
preacher  until  all  Christians  shall  come  to  understand 
the  situation,  and  be  constrained  to  stop  and  consider, 
and  to  inquire  what  is  their  present  duty  in  relation 
to  the  world's  evangelization. 


SECTION   SECOND. 

The  Scriptural  Law  of  Giving  Provides  the  Needed 
Means  for  the  Work. 

But  may  not  all  this  be  true,  and  yet  the  Church  be 
under  no  obligation  to  furnish,  at  the  present  time,  all 
the  pecuniary  means  needed  to  send  the  Gospel  at 
once  into  all  the  world  ?  So  the  Church — judging 
from  her  acts — seems  to  think. 

A  greater  or  more  deadly  error  is  hardly  conceiv- 
able. There  is  not  even  the  shadow  of  a  foundation 
for  it  in  the  Word  of  God. 

The  supreme  need  of  the  hour,  next  to  the  outpour- 
ing of  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  that  the  Church  should  be  set 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  35 

right  in  her  theory  of  Christian  giving.  She  has  been, 
and  is  still,  directing  her  conduct  in  this  matter  in  ac- 
cordance with  a  false  and  unscriptural  j-alse 
theory,  that  would  prove  fatal  to  her  Theories, 
success  even  if  her  wealth  were  again  multiplied  a 
hundredfold,  as  it  has  already  been  multiplied  a 
thousandfold — a  theory  that  must  always  prove  fatal 
because  false  and  unscriptural.  It  therefore  becomes  a 
main  part  of  the  duty  of  the  ministry,  as  the  leaders  in 
the  Church,  to  set  her  right  in  this  regard,  that  the 
world  may  be  saved  without  delay.  So  general  and 
so  fundamental  is  the  error  on  this  point,  and  so 
inevitably  fatal,  that  we  are  constrained  to  ask  special 
and  prayerful  attention  to  its  consideration,  and  to 
the  teaching  of  the  Word  of  God  regarding  it.  If 
such  error  exists,  the  subject  manifestly  calls  for 
such  attention  and  consideration,  and  no  leader 
in  Zion  can  innocently  avoid  or  evade  the  duty  of 
making   a   complete    investigation    for   himself. 

Perhaps  it  is  almost  too  much  to  speak  of  such  a 
thing  as  the  Church' s  theory  of  Christian  giving.  A  vast 
number  of  professing  Christians  do  not  consciously 
hold  any  theory  on  that  subject.  Their  practical 
theory,  as  formulated  from  their  conduct,  seems  to  be 
that,  after  they  have  ministered  to  their  own  neces- 
sities and  enjoyments  to  the  full  and  laid  up  a  gener- 
ous sum  *' against  a  rainy  day,"  if  there  be  anything 
left  from  their  income,  such  driblets  of  this  surplusage 
as  the  minister  may  extort  from  them  by  pathetic ' 
appeals,  or  the  parish  draw  from  them  by  oyster 
suppers  and  other  pious  entertainments,  should  go 
reluctantly  to  help  carry  out  Christ's  commission. 
The  brother  who  thanked  the  Lord  for  a  ''  free 
religion,"   and   declared   that   tho   he   had   been    **a 


36       Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

member  of  the  Church  for  twenty-five  years  it  had  only 
cost  him  twenty-five  cents,"  may  be  regarded  as  the 
typical  Christian  of  this  class.  There  is  still  another 
and  large  class  who  treat  their  giving  very  much  as  a 
matter  of  impulse,  and  so  give  without  system.  At  a 
far  remove  from  these  is  a  small  class  of  conscientious 
Christians  who  advocate  systematic  giving,  according 
to  the  Jewish  law  of  tithes,  which,  it  is  claimed, 
requires  of  every  one  a  tenth  of  his  income,  either  in 
the  net  or  in  the  gross.  The  great  fact  remains,  as 
will  be  seen,  that  the  Church  is  giving  next  to  nothing 
of  what  she  should  give  for  the  carrying  out  of  her  com- 
mission from  the  Master. 

And  unless  the  preachers  wake  up  and  tell  the 
Church  the  whole  truth  of  God  in  this  matter,  there  is 
no  good  reason  to  expect  the  world's  conversion  for  a 
thousand  years  to  come.  The  Church's  theories  are 
all  wrong, — as  demonstrated  by  the  outcome, — and  the 
preacher  must  make  that  plain  beyond  misunderstand- 
ing, doubt,  or  peradventure.  If  he  is  to  do  that,  his 
watchword  must  be,  ''To  the  law  and  to  the  testi- 
mony." It  is  high  time  for  him  to  go  back  to  the 
Word  of  God  to  learn  what  is  the  law  of  Christian  giv- 
ing, in  order  to  enforce  it  upon  the  rich  Church  of 
to-day. 

The  Law  of  Christian  Giving. 

The  law  of  Christian  giving  is  the  basal  thing  for  the 
Church  of  the  present  time.  If  there  are  any  prin- 
ciples involved  in  the  matter,  or  if  there  are  any  rules 
that  govern  or  should  govern  it,  it  is  most  assuredly 
of  vital  importance  that  the  preacher  should  find  out 
what  they  are,  and  that  he  should  let  the  Church  know 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  37 

just   what   they  are   and    precisely  what    the    Master 
requires  of  her. 

It  may  be  that  we  ought  not  to  say  *'  Christian  giv- 
ing^'' for  the  time  is  fast  coming,  if,  indeed,  it  has  not 
already  come — when  that  expression  must  be  aban- 
doned. We  cannot  give  to  any  one  what  already 
belongs  to  him.  The  Christian  can  not,  strictly  speak- 
ing, give  to  Christ  what  is  already  his  own  by  every  pos- 
sible title.  We  should  speak  rather  of  ''the  Christian's 
use  of  wealth  as  the  steward  of  Christ  in  the  Kingdom 
of  God." 

The   starting-point  is  with  the  requirements  made 
through  Moses,  the  Hebrew  lawgiver.     The  old  dis- 
pensation   laid    the     foundation    for    the  old  Testament 
new.     According  to  the  Mosaic  code^  what         Rule. 
portion  was  the  Jew  required  to   devote  to  the  cause  of 
religion  ? 

The  general  notion  is  that  he  gave  o?ie  te?tth.  That 
is  clearly  a  mistaken  notion,  as  any  one  will  see  by  an 
examination  of  the  Scriptures;  and  the  theory  founded 
upon  it  is  utterly  baseless. 

The  law,  in  its  first  enactment,  required  the  Jew  to 
give  one  tenth  to  the  Levite.  If  he  paid  it  in  kind, 
well;  if  not,  one  fifth  of  one  tenth  was  added.  The 
Levite  gave  a  tenth  of  his  tenth  to  the  Lord  for  the 
support  of  the  high  priest  (see  Levit.  xxvii.  30-33; 
Num.  xviii.).  This  first  tenth  was  for  the  support  of 
the  priesthood.  But  the  law  required  that  the  Jew 
should  devote  a  second  tenth  to  the  yearly  religious 
festivals.  He  was  to  take  this  tenth  to  the  place 
appointed  by  the  Lord  for  his  worship  (see  Deut. 
xiv.  22-27).  Then,  every  third  year,  he  was  to  bring 
a  third  tenth  of  all  his  produce  and  share  it  with  the 
Levite   and   the    poor   and   the    stranger,    in    festival 


38      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

rejoicing   with    them.     This    was    enacted    in    Deut. 
xiv.  28,  29,  and  renewed  in  Deut.  xxvi. 

If  its  provisions  have  been  read  correctly,  the  Mosaic 
law  demanded  of  the  Jew  two  tenths  every  year,  and 
every  third  year  three  tenths^  or  an  average  of  two  and 
one-third  tenths  yearly. 

But  may  not  the  record  have  been  read  incorrectly  ? 
Certainly  no  argument  against  the  result  arrived  at, 
based  upon  the  greatness  of  the  requirement,  can  for 
a  moment  stand,  for,  by  accurate  calculation,  almost 
one  half  the  time  of  the  Jew  was  required  in  God's 
service.  It  was  evidently  the  divine  purpose  to 
require  great  things  of  the  chosen  people.  Indeed,  it 
is  necessary  to  go  further  and  to  take  into  account  the 
fact  that  these  tithes  were  only  a  part  of  the  gifts  of 
the  Jew — the  ordered  and  measured  part — before  we 
can  appreciate  the  full  extent  of  the  means  which  he 
devoted  to  God's  service.  The  other  part  consisted 
of  free-ivill  offe^Hngs^  the  largeness  and  frequency  of 
which  were  left  to  the  promptings  of  the  individual 
heart,  but  which  might,  in  some  instances,  even  exceed 
the  tithes.  Moreover,  in  the  case  of  the  Jew,  it  was 
the  gross  incotJte  or  product  of  his  industry  that  was 
tithed,  before  anything  had  been  used  for  his  own 
purposes. 

But  we  are  rescued  from  all  need  of  dependence  on 
probabilities  by  finding  just  at  hand  reliable  witnesses 
to  the  correctness  of  the  above  reading  of  the  Mosaic 
law.  Josephus,  who  lived  at  the  time  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem,  says  distinctly  that  one  tenth  was  to 
be  given  yearly  to  the  Levites;  one  tenth  was  to  be 
applied  to  the  festivals  at  Jerusalem;  and  one  tenth 
was  to  be  given  every  third  year  to  the  poor.  Tobit, 
who  probably  wrote  about  400  b.  c,  and  Jerome,  who 


THE    PREACHER  S   PRESENT    COMMISSION.  39 

wrote  about  400  a.  d.,  tell  us  the  same  thing.  Now, 
these  are  all  credible  and  competent  witnesses  to  the 
Jewish  understanding  of  the  law,  in  their  various  days, 
and  they  all  confirm  our  reading  of  the  rule  which  was 
to  govern  the  benevolence  of  the  Jews. 

But  the  pertinent  question  arises:  Does  this  enact- 
ment of  the  Jewish  lawgiver  belong  to  that  part  of  his 
code  that,  as  is  the  case  with  the  Deca-  New  Testament 
logue,  is  oi perpetual  obligation^  and,  there-  R^^©- 
fore,  necessarily  binding  upon  the  Christian  Church  ? 
Or,  if  not,  what  is  the  present  rule  that  is  to  govern 
the  Church  in  its  Christian  giving  ? 

This  involves  the  inquiry:  How  did  Christ  and  his 
Apostles  treat  the  tithes  system!  What  rule  did  they 
acknowledge  or  lay  down  ? 

How  did  Christ,  himself  the  greater  lawgiver  than 
Moses,  treat  the  tithe  system  ?     It  is  learned  from  the 

Gospels  that  he  ratified  it,  at  least  for 

i-u     T  TT     j-j  ^u-        u       u  A    Christ's  View, 

the  Jew.     He  did  this  when  he  reproved 

the  Pharisees  for  their  neglect  of  the  weightier  matters 
of  the  law:  **Wo  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees, 
hypocrites;  for  ye  pay  tithes  of  mint,  and  anise,  and 
cumin,  and  have  omitted  the  weightier  matters  of  the 
law,  judgment,  mercy,  and  faith;  these  ought  ye  to  have 
done^  and  not  to  leave  the  other  undone."  This  rati- 
fication is  recorded  in  Matt,  xxiii.  23,  and  in  Luke 
xi.  42. 

But  was  this  ratification  for  any  one  besides  the  Jew  ? 
The  considerations  in  favor  of  a  negative  answer 
appear  to  be  conclusive — for  the  Jew  clearly,  since 
the  Jew  was  still  under  the  law  of  Moses,  and  this  was 
but  an  affirmation  of  that  fact;  for  none  besides  the 
Jew,  since  Jesus  was  himself  ''a  minister  of  the  cir- 
cumcision," or  of  the  old  dispensation  (see  Rom.  xv.  8), 


40         CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

and,  as  such,  enforcing  the  law  of  Moses.  The  new 
dispensation  could  not  have  its  full  beginning  until  its 
foundation  had  been  laid  in  Christ's  death.  Taking 
into  account  the  teachings  of  the  Apostles,  along  with 
those  of  our  Lord  himself,  there  is  nowhere  any  clear 
and  sufficient  evidence  that  he  made  the  old  Jewish 
law  of  tithes  the  law  of  that  dispensation.  There  is 
nowhere  even  the  shadow  of  evidence  that  he  did. 

If  he  did  reaffirm  the  law,  then  the  requirement 
would  be  that  the  Church  should  yearly  devote  at 
least  seven  thirtieths  of  its  income  to  the  objects  of 
Christian  benevolence:  and  this,  too,  in  addition  to 
all  the  free-will  offerings  for  which  the  special  favors 
of  God  give  ten  thousand  occasions.  If  he  did  not 
reaffirm  it,  then  more,  rather  than  less,  in  some  form, 
must  be  required  of  Christians  as  a  body.  If  a  reason 
be  asked,  it  may  be  answered  that,  since  the  times  of 
the  Mosaic  law,  the  grand  truth  of  God's  ownership  of 
all  things  has  given  place  to  that  of  Christ's  owner- 
ship of  all  things;  that  the  motive  has  risen  all  the 
way  up  from  law  to  love;  and  that  the  mission  of  the 
people  in  covenant  with  God  has  enlarged  from  the 
reception  and  conservation  of  the  divine  revelation  in 
the  little  Jewish  state  to  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel 
throughout  the  whole  world.  To  the  Christian,  the 
Head  of  the  Church  can  say:  *'  Give  as  bought  by  my 
blood;  as  recreated  by  my  Spirit;  as  you  love  me;  as 
a  perishing  world  needs." 

But  assuming  that  Christ  did  not  make  the  Mosaic 

system  binding  under  the  new  dispensation,  did   the 

The  Apostles'    Apostles,   on   whom  devolved  the    work 

View.         of  organizing  the   primitive  Church,  do 

any  such  thing  ? 

We  think  the  answer  must  be  an  emphatic  negative. 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  4I 

The  substantive  expression  for  "tithe,"  and  the  two- 
fold verbal  expression  for  "giving  tithes"  and  "re- 
ceiving tithes,"  occur  in  the  Apostolic  writings,  from 
the  Acts  to  the  Revelation,  only  seven  times — never 
out  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  always  in  such 
connection  as  to  preclude  the  basing  upon  them  of 
any  valid  argument  for  the  reenactment  of  the  Jewish 
tithe  law  for  the  New  Testament  Church.  It  is  hard 
to  see  how  any  one  who  does  clear  thinking  can  avoid 
coming  to  the  same  conclusion,  with  regard  to  the 
whole  tithing  system,  that  Blackstone  reached  with 
regard  to  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
that  in  spite  of  his  notorious  and  almost  slavish  adher- 
ence to  past  usages,  and  which  he  expressed  when  he 
wrote  in  \{\^  Commentaries,  "I  will  not  put  the  title 
of  the  clergy  to  tithes  upon  any  divine  right,  though 
such  a  right  certainly  commenced,  and  I  believe  as 
certainly  ceased,  with  the  Jewish  theocracy."  See 
Blackstone,  Comffietitaries,  bk.  ii.  ch.  8. 

What,  then,  is  the  Scriptural  and  Apostolic  rule  laid 
doivn  to  gover?t  the  Church  in  Christian  giving  ?     We  can 
barely  call  attention  to  the  rule,  as  com-    The  Apostolic 
prehensively   stated     by    Paul     for    the  "R-m^q. 

Christians  in  Corinth,  in  i  Cor.  xvii.  2:  "Upon 
the  first  day  of  the  week  let  every  one  of  you  lay  by 
him  in  store  as  God  has  prospered  him."  The  Apos- 
tolic rule  evidently  knows  no  measure  short  of  the 
steward's  utmost  ability,  when  wholly  under  control  of 
love  to  Christ  and  a  lost  world.  The  single  illustra- 
tion from  Christian  conduct,  to  which  we  may  refer,  is 
that  furnished  by  the  mother  Church  of  all,  at  Jerusa- 
lem, and  recorded  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles.  Living  in  that  first  great  crisis  in  the 
spread  of  the  Gospel,  than  which  no  greater  has  been 


42         CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

known  till  that  of  the  present  day,  those  early  Chris- 
tians read  with  all  clearness  the  demand  of  their 
ascended  Lord,  in  his  words  and  in  the  signs  of  the 
times,  and,  catching  the  spirit  of  their  mission,  devoted 
themselves  and  all  their  possessions  to  his  cause. 

If  the  views  that  have  been  presented  are  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Word  of  God,  there  is  no  reasonable 
TheCh  rch's  ^^^^P^  from  the  conclusion  that  the 
XJnscriptural  Church  is  at  present  co7iducting  her  work 
Tneory.  j^^.  ^j^^  world  07i  a  false  and  tmscriptural 
theory.  Even  the  so-called  *' systematic  giving,"  on 
the  basis  of  the  Jewish  tithing  system,  is  utterly  unten- 
able; while  the  other  working-theories  are  absolutely 
indefensible  as  being  both  Christless  and  unchristian. 
While  the  latter  are  eminently  fitted  to  furnish  a  cloak 
for  all  the  meanness  and  covetousness  possible  to 
unregenerate  human  nature,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
dry  up  the  springs  of  all  true  benevolence  in  regenerate 
human  nature;  the  former  can  not  fail  to  mechanize 
and  minimize  the  whole  matter  of  Christian  giving  and 
develop  a  spirit  of  self-righteousness,  self-satisfaction, 
and  self-gratulation.  The  tithing  principle  inevitably 
tends  to  make  the  tenth  the  maximum  of  gift,  to  which 
only  one  in  perhaps  tens  of  thousands  will  work  up, 
and  far  below  which  the  majority  will  contentedly 
fall;  while  it  is  apt  to  fix  the  attention  of  the  giver 
upon  the  remaining  nine  tenths,  rather  than  upon  the 
supreme  demands  of  the  cause  of  Christ.  Jt  is  pretty 
sure  to  start  with  the  net  ificome,  rather  than  the  gross 
income  with  which  the  Jew  started.  Leaving  out  the 
time  that  the  Jew  devoted  to  his  religion,  and  the  free- 
will offerings,  it  halves,  or  rather  thirds,  the  amount 
that  the  Jew  gave  in  tithes.  Worst  of  all,  it  takes 
away  Christian  freedom,  remands  the  man  to  rule  and 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  43 

law,  and  in  the  end  results  in  the  obscuring  of  the 
interests  of  Christ's  Kingdom  by  mechanism  and 
legalism.  These  theories  are  therefore  not  only  base- 
less, but  also  demoralizing  and  dechristianizing  in  the 
extreme.  Until  they  have  been  displaced  by  the  true 
and  Scriptural  theory,  there  can  be  no  hope  of  any 
great  progress  in  the  work  of  the  Church  for  a  lost 
world. 

Providence  and  the  Scriptures,   therefore,   unite  in 
sweeping  away  that  old  and  sinful  excuse  of  a  covetous 
Church — that  the  Lord's    money  tithes  Ample  provision 
are  inadequate  to   the  work   clearly  re-  Made. 

quired  of  her — by  bringing  out  clearly  and  emphasiz- 
iag  tht  pre  se?it  tense  oi  the  command,  ''Go  ye!"  In 
the  more  than  calcium  light  which  they  cast  upon  her 
present  rates  of  giving  for  Gospel  work,  her  gifts — 
however  great  as  compared  with  those  of  a  genera- 
tion or  two  ago — are  beggarly  in  the  extreme  !  The 
preacher's  vocation  demands  that  he  shall  turn  on  the 
light,  and  turn  it  on,  and  on  again,  until  the  Church  is 
roused  to  a  proper  consideration,  and  apprehension, 
and  comprehension  of  the  existing  condition  of  enor- 
mous wealth,  and  of  Christ's  requirements  respecting 
the  use  of  it.  He  is  under  obligation  to  press  the 
facts  and  the  divine  law  upon  men,  until  they  are  con- 
strained to  bring  their  logic  from  the  schools  and  the 
forum,  and  their  arithmetic  from  the  counting-room, 
the  stock-exchange,  and  the  marts  of  trade,  and  to 
make  practical  application  of  them  to  the  questions  of 
their  own  present  duty,  in  view  of  Christ's  pressing 
demand  for  the  immediate  carrying  out  of  the  Great 
Commission. 

To  apply  arithmetic  :    the  gross  outcome  of  Ameri- 
can productive  industry  for  the  year  1890  was,  let  us 


44         CHRIST  S    TRUiMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

say,  $10,000,000,000 — figures  far  below  the  actual. 
By  a  low  estimate,  one  half  that  sum,  or  $5,000,000,000, 
came  into  the  control  of  those  connected  directly  or 
indirectly  with  the  Protestant  Christian  Church  and 
acknowledging  more  or  less  fully  Christian  obligations. 
One  tenth  of  that — a  tithe — would  be  $500,000,000; 
two  tenths,  twice  that,  or  $1,000,000,000;  two  and  a 
third  tenths — or  what  the  old  Jew  gave — $1,166,000,- 
000  !  Is  the  rich  Church  able  to  give  what  is  needed 
to  save  a  lost  world  through  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  ?  Let  every  adherent  of  Protestant  Christian- 
ity apply  his  Christian  arithmetic  to  that  question 
and  answer  it  for  himself,  as  he  expects  to  give  ac- 
count to  God  ! 

Or  look  at  the  possibilities  of  the  problem  from 
another  point  of  view.  There  are  in  these  United 
States  fourteen  million  members  of  evangelical  Protes- 
tant Churches.  Leaving  out  of  consideration  the  vast 
number  of  Church  adherents  who  are  not  Church 
members,  these  millions  of  professing  Christians  con- 
trol approximately  one  fifth  of  the  wealth  of  the  nation, 
and  one  fifth  of  the  annual  outcome  of  production. 
That  would  give  them  a  gross  income  of  $2,000,000,- 
000.  One  tenth  of  that  is  $200,000,000;  two  tenths, 
$400,000,000;  two  and  a  third  tenths,  $466,000,000. 
That  would  be  what  God  would  require  of  them  yearly 
if  they  ivere  Jews^  under  the  old  Jewish  law  of  tithes; 
that,  besides  the  free-will  offerings  in  recognition  of 
God's  special  mercies — for  their  Christian  work  for  the 
world  ! 

But  this  statement  pertains  to  the  Protestant  Chris- 
tian Church  of  this  country  only,  leaving  out  all  the 
rest  of  the  Protestant  nations.  This  emphasizes  the 
question:  Is  the  Chui'ch  able  to  furnish  the  means  to  send 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  45 

the  Gospel  into  all  this  perishing  world  noiu?  Is  she  not 
herself  perishing  in  wealth  and  luxury  and  corruption 
because  she  is  not  doing  it  ?  Let  every  Christian  apply 
his  arithmetic  to  this  life-and-death  problem  and  find 
its  true  solution,  and  measure  his  duty  by  the  Gospel 
standard,  by  Christ's  own  standard. 

Who  can  contemplate,  without  shuddering,  the 
consequences  that  must  follow  from  using  this  vast 
God-given  wealth— given  by  God  and,  as  Dangers 
shown  by  his  providences,  for  this  one  from  Hoarded 
great  end  of  saving  a  lost  world — for  Wealth, 
other  purposes  than  that  for  which  he  has  given 
it?  And  yet  it  is  undoubtedly  being  so  used  ;  and  all 
the  material  show  and  grandeur  gathered  at  the  Co- 
lumbian Exposition  demonstrated  that  misuse.  It  is 
rapidly  becoming  manifest  that  the  greatest  danger 
to-day  to  society,  to  the  Church,  to  this  nation,  and 
to  the  world,  is  the  danger  from  misused  wealth  ;  for 
the  misuse  of  such  wealth  brings  to  the  individual  and 
to  the  nation  luxury;  it  brings  idleness  ;  it  brings 
vice  ;  it  must  bring  wreck.  That  is  the  natural  pen- 
alty. That  was  the  course  run  in  the  nations  of  antiq- 
uity; and  in  our  case  there  will  follow  the  same  results, 
if  we  gather  and  hoard,  or  scatter  and  abuse,  this  vast 
wealth,  and  do  nothing  more  or  higher  than  that. 

Already  thoughtful  men  are  coming  to  recognize 
the  fact  that  the  most  dangerous  classes  in  society 
are  not,  after  all,  the  men  and  women  Dang-erous 
down  in  the  slums  ;  but  the  rich  people  Classes, 
who  have  millions  and  nothing  to  do,  except  to  try  to 
get  more,  or  to  find  something  to  kill  time  and  out  of 
which  to  get  a  passing  enjoyment.  These  are  the 
dangerous  classes,  because  their  position  and  wealth 
and  show  give  them  marvelous  influence  over  all  the 


46      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

middle  classes,  and  thereby  enable  them  to  gloss  over 
irreligion,  immorality,  and  vice  ;  to  pervert  the  moral 
sentiment  of  the  country  and  of  the  world  ;  and  to 
debase  and  debauch  with  equal  ease  the  home-life, 
politics,  and  religion. 

Now  God's  providences,  in  all  past  history,  have 
shown    that  it  was   not   his   purpose    that  we    should 

Perils  from  gather  up  all  this  wealth  for  ourselves, 
Misused  and  keep  it  for  ourselves — or,  at  least. 
Wealth.       ^j-j^|.  ^g  ^^j^  j^Q^  ^Q  j^  without  ruin.     We 

ought  to  have  learned  this  lesson  in  connection  with 
the  late  Civil  War.  We  kept  the  slave  to  make  money 
by;  but  we  learned  that  *' God  will  have  his  own." 
He  struck  off  the  chains.  He  took  ten  thousand 
million  dollars,  in  various  ways  ;  and  that  was  proba- 
bly as  much  as  we  had  made  by  our  oppression — or 
more.  God  will  have  his  own  !  Men  ought  to  learn 
it  by  the  panics  that  come  periodically,  in  consequence 
of  their  pushing  on  in  their  greed  for  wealth  and 
thinking  of  nothing  else.  Every  great  panic  has  that 
lesson  of  God  in  it;  and  the  financial  crisis  and  stress 
through  which  the  nation  is  passing  at  the  present  time 
has  a  lesson  along  the  same  line.  Just  so  long  as  men 
use  the  gold  and  silver  and  steam  and  the  electricity 
and  all  these  forces  of  nature  and  humanity,  that  God 
has  given  them,  for  selfish  ends,  for  the  amassing  of 
wealth,  for  pleasure  and  luxury  and  show — just  so 
long  they  will  find  panics  recurring,  they  will  find 
stoppages  of  activity,  they  will  find  ruin  overwhelming 
them  from  time  to  time.  These  providences  are 
always  coming  and  will  keep  coming;  they  are  God's 
voice  warning  of  error  and  danger  and  destruction, 
and  calling  to  imperative  duty  and  glorious  privilege 
in  Christian  work. 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  47 

The  exact  situation,  then,  as  it  appears  from  provi- 
dence and  Scriptures,  seems  to  be  this:  The  rich 
Church,  with  her  great  possessions,  is  xhe  Present 
to  day  confronting  a  lost  world.  Christ  Problem, 
is  holding  up  before  her  the  ideal  Christian,  the  man 
of  service  and  of  self-sacrifice,  and  is  bidding  her  to 
go  forward  illustrating  the  ideal  Christian  character. 
It  can  readily  be  seen  that,  on  the  principles  of  the 
Old  Dispensation,  we  would  have  enough  in  five  years 
to  send  the  Gospel  into  all  the  world.  We  could  fur- 
nish enough  at  once,  if  we  were  disposed  to  do  it. 
There  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  done.  Every 
one  would  be  better — and  in  the  end  richer  too — for 
doing  it.  The  Church  can  only  refuse  it  at  her  peril. 
Will  she  consecrate  her  sons  and  daughters,  and  send 
them  to  this  work  ?  Or  will  she  keep  them  at  home, 
and  pamper  them  with  her  wealth  and  destroy  them  ? 
Will  her  wealth  become  a  consuming  canker  ?  Or  will 
it  be  wrought  into  a  crown  of  glory?  Christ  calls  her; 
he  pleads  his  dying  love  and  her  solemn  vows  !  She 
can  not  falter  and  fail  without  repudiating  her  Master, 
breaking  her  vows  and  her  covenant,  and  giving  up  her 
hope  of  salvation. 

The  preacher  must  bring  home  her  responsiblity  in 
this  matter  to  the  Church  of  Christ,  until  the  truth  has 
been  burned  into  the  very  souls  of  all  her  members 
and  they  come  to  realize,  as  in  the  presence  of  the 
judgment,  the  exact  situation  ! 

In  this  critical  condition  of  affairs,  it  was  eminently 
appropriate  that  all    the  great  American   Missionary 
Societies    should    send,    in    the    year    of    The  Mission- 
grace,  1894,  *'An  Epistle  to  the  Church       aryCall. 
concerning  the  World's  Evangelization,"  and  that  they 
should  call  upon  the  Churches  with  which  they  are  con- 


48       Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

nected  to  make  "  The  Final  Rally  of  the  Century. "  We 
quote  the  opening  of  that  call,  as  in  essential  harmony 
with  the  considerations  that  we  have  been  urging  : 

"  For  nearly  nineteen  centuries  the  vast  majority  of  the  populations 
of  the  globe  have  waited  in  vain  for  the  Gospel  of  redemption  that 
was  committed  to  the  Christian  Church.  It  was  said  most  truthfully, 
by  the  late  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  that  '  the  Gospel  might  have  been 
proclaimed  to  all  nations  a  dozen  times  over  if  the  Christian  Church 
had  been  faithful  to  her  trust.'  It  is  appalling  to  think  that  sixty 
generations  of  the  unevangelized  heathen  world  have  perished  in 
darkness  since  our  Lord  established  and  commissioned  his  Church 
as  a  living  and  aggressive  force  in  the  Avorld.  And  of  all  the  genera- 
tions ours  is  the  most  guilty  in  proportion  to  its  greater  opportuni- 
ties. In  some  mission-fields  it  is  already  demonstrated  that  by  the 
Spirit  of  God  thousands  may  be  gathered  where  there  have  only 
been  hundreds  or  scores.  '  Let  us  expect  great  things  from  God  and 
attempt  great  things  for  God.'  " 

The  call  is  for  universal  cooperation — to  instructors 
in  colleges  and  theological  seminaries,  to  pastors  and 
associate  officers  of  churches,  to  superintendents  and 
teachers  of  Sabbath-schools,  to  the  women  of  the 
Church,  to  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations,  and 
Young  Women's  Christian  Associations,  to  Societies 
of  Christian  Endeavor,  to  the  Epworth  League,  to  the 
St.  Andrew  Brotherhood,  to  all  gilds  and  societies  of 
the  young  in  any  branch  of  the  Church,  to  join  in  one 
common  effort  for  the  salvation  of  the  world,  and  to 
unite,  with  new  meaning  and  emphasis,  in  the  divinely 
prescribed  petition,  **  Thy  kingdom  come,  thy  will  be 
done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  Heaven." 

If  any  one  thing  is  manifest  to  any  one  who  stops 

for   serious   thought,   it   is    that   the    Church    can   be 

The  Only      emancipated  from  this  worldly  thraldom, 

Help.         and    this    greatest   of   obstacles   can   be 

removed,  by  the  renovating  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 


THE    PREACHER  S    PRESENT    COMMISSION.  49 

and  by  that  alone.  The  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is 
therefore  the  supreme  need  of  the  hour.  In  the  inter- 
view of  Jesus  with  his  disciples,  when  he  met  them, 
on  the  evening  following  the  first  day  of  the  week, 
after  the  crucifixion,  with  Thomas  absent,  he  gave 
them  2,  promise  and  a  command : 

"And  behold  I  send  the  promise  of  my  Father  upon  you.  But 
tarry  ye  in  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  until  ye  be  endued  with  power  from 
on  high." 

In  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  Luke  states  more  fully 
the  promise  of  baptism  with  the  Holy  Ghost : 

"  But  ye  shall  receive  power,  after  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  come 
upon  you  ;  and  ye  shall  be  witnesses  unto  me  both  in  Jerusalem  and 
in  all  Judea  and  in  Samaria,  and  unto  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
earth," 

In  the  second  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
Luke  records  the  fulfilment: 

"And  when  the  day  of  Pentecost  was  fully  come  they  were  all 
with  one  accord  in  one  place.  And  suddenly  there  came  a  sound 
from  heaven  as  of  a  rushing  mighty  wind,  and  it  filled  all  the  house 
where  they  were  sitting.  And  there  appeared  unto  them  cloven 
tongues  like  as  of  fire,  and  it  sat  upon  each  of  them.  And  they  were 
all  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  began  to  speak  with  other  tongues, 
as  the  Spirit  gave  them  utterance." 

The  immediate  result  on  that  day  was  the  adding  of 
three  thousand  souls  to  the  number  of  the  disciples. 
That  pentacostal  season  has  been  regarded  as  typical 
of  all  great  religious  awakenings  and  conquests  in  the 
ages  since  ;  and  the  '*  tongues  of  fire"  have  been  the 
symbol  of  that  baptism,  or  that  pouring  out,  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  which  has  been  the  only  thing  that  has 


5©         CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

ever  endued  the  Church  with   power  in  its  work  of 
saving  the  world. 

Such  baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  what  the  Church 
supremely  needs  to-day.  The  tongue  of  fire  is  what 
The  Preacher's  the  preacher  needs,  if  he  is  to  be,  in  his 
Present  Duty,  official  position,  the  agent  in  preparing 
the  Church  for  such  a  baptism,  and  in  saving  lost 
sinners  from  the  power  of  sin  and  death.  That  need 
is  emphasized  and  made  so  imperative,  by  the  great 
fact  that,  while,  in  this  age  as  in  every  other  age, 
he  is  to  carry  on  the  general  work  of  his  commission, 
the  preacher  has,  at  the  present  day,  the  added  work 
and  responsibility  of  bringing  all  Christians  to  a 
deeper  sense  of  their  deficiencies  and  of  their  respon- 
sibilities, and  of  leading  them  to  seek,  with  an  urgency 
that  can  not  be  denied,  for  the  immediate  and  univer- 
sal outpouring  of  God's  Spirit,  that  the  world  may  be 
saved  noiv. 

Meanwhile,  it  is  high  time  that  the  preacher  should 
everywhere  lead  on  the  Church  in  the  final  rally  of  the 
century.  The  supreme  demand  upon  him  in  this  con- 
nection is  that  he  should  absolutely  overwhelm  his 
people  with  the  momentous  facts  of  providence,  of 
history,  and  of  the  Word  of  God  on  this  subject,  until 
by  the  breath  of  the  Spirit  they  shall  be  brought  to 
feel,  in  every  fiber  of  their  being,  that  '' covetousness 
is  idolatry,"  that  God  hates  it  in  them  just  as  fiercely  as 
— yea,  much  more  fiercely  than — he  hated  it  m  Achan 
of  old,  and  in  Ananias  and  Sapphira,  when  he  crushed 
them  with  his  thunderbolts,  and  that  there  is  no  escape 
from  the  bottomless  pit  for  those  who  are  under  its 
dominion. 


the  preachers  present  commission.  5 1 

Summary  and  Conclusion. 

The  considerations  that  have  been  urged  make  it 
clear  that  the  Church  is  to-day  passing  through  a  great 
crisis.  It  is  not  simply  a  crisis  in  foreign  missions, 
but  a  crisis  in  the  entire  work  of  evangelizing  the  race 
at  home  and  abroad.  The  whole  world  is  open  to  the 
Gospel,  waiting  for  it,  perishing  for  the  lack  of  it. 
The  Church  has  every  means  and  facility  for  giving  it 
that  Gospel.  The  great  Church  and  missionary  agen- 
cies are  already  pushing  on  to  take  possession  of  the 
highways  and  byways  of  this  nation  and  of  all  the 
nations.  The  command  ''  Go  ye  "  has  at  this  hour  a 
pregnant  and  momentous  meaning  that  it  never  had 
before.  The  preacher's  commission,  as  the  official 
leader,  director,  inspirer,  of  the  great  forward  move- 
ment, takes  on  a  solemnity  that  it  has  never  had 
before.  Upon  the  preacher,  under  God,  the  great  bur- 
den of  responsibility  supremely  rests.  The  answer  to 
the  question,  *'  What  shall  be  done  ?"  depends  largely 
upon  him.  If  he  fails  to  grasp  the  situation  himself, 
he  cannot  instruct  the  Church  in  her  present  duty. 

It  has  been  said  that  Christ  has  providentially  taken 
away  every  obstacle  to  the  spread  of  the  Gospel,  and 
that  he  has  made  worthless  every  one  of  The  One  Only 
the  old  excuses  for  delaying  the  work.  Obstacle. 
That  statement  needs  to  be  corrected  :  He  has  taken 
away  all  obstacles  except  those  in  the  hearts  of  professing 
Christians  themselves.  It  can  not  be  reasonably  denied 
that  there  is  still  deep  spiritual  lethargy  resting  upon 
the  Church  ;  deep  insensibility  to  the  needs  of  a 
perishing  world;  a  wide-spread  indifference  to  her 
obligation  to  the  Master.  We  had  better  face  the 
facts.     There  is  nothing  to  be  gained — rather  every- 


52  CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

thing  to  be  lost — by  blinking  them.  Hardness  of 
heart  is  upon  us  to-day,  as  upon  Israel  of  old.  World- 
liness  wraps  us  about  and  lulls  us  into  unconsciousness 
to-day,  as  it  did  priest  and  people  and  king  of  old. 
Gold  dazzles  us  with  its  glitter,  as  it  dazzled  in  the 
olden  times,  shutting  out  with  its  glare  the  glory  of 
our  mission  and  the  glory  of  God.  Money-getting  is 
practically  and  the  world  over,  in  the  view  of  the  multi- 
tude, the  chief  end  of  man.  The  same  sins — idolatry 
and  the  self-righteous  formality  of  outward  works — 
against  which  the  later  prophets  strove,  in  seeking  to 
bring  the  Chosen  People  to  a  sense  of  their  mission, 
stand  in  the  way  of  the  progress  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God  to-day.  The  influence  of  all  this  is  powerfully 
operative  with  preacher  and  people  alike;  and  in  con- 
sequence of  it  the  world  is  left  to  perish  in  its  sin, 
while  we  keep  up  our  self-deception  by  officially  enact- 
ing our  "  Play  of  Missions  "!  Dr.  Arthur  T.  Pierson 
has  graphically  summed  up  the  present  condition  of 
affairs  and  the  failure  of  the  Christian  centuries  to 
push  the  Gospel,  except  so  far  as  God  has  carried  his 
own  work  majestically  on,  by  his  providence  : 

"  Meanwhile,  what  are  we  doing  ?  Trifling  with  the  whole  matter 
of  a  world's  evangelization  ;  trifling  on  a  magnificent  scale  !  Since 
our  Lord  on  Calvary  breathed  his  dying  prayer,  fifty  successive  gen- 
erations of  human  beings  have  passed  away.  In  this  awful  aggregate 
twenty-five  times  the  present  population  of  the  globe  have  perished 
without  the  Gospel  ;  and  as  yet  the  entire  Christian  Church  sends 
less  than  6000  laborers  into  the  foreign  field  and  spends  less  than 
$12,000,000  a  year  on  the  world-wide  work  !  " 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  PREACHER'S  MESSAGE. 

What,  in  view  of  the  present  pressing  requirement 
of  his  commission,  is  to  be  the  preacher's  message? 
What  must  it  be  in  view  of  the  great  crisis  of  the 
hour  ?     We  answer: 

Bible  Christianity  as  a  Saving  Power  for  the  Sinner 
and  for  the  World. 

The  preacher's  one  essential  message,  under  his 
commission,  is  the  message  of  salvation:  "  Preach  the 
Gospel  to  every  creature."  Christianity  Salvation tlie 
is  essentially  distinguished  from  all  other  Key-Note. 
religions,  by  being  the  religion  of  salvation.  It  has 
undoubtedly  furnished  the  source  and  inspiration  of 
all  that  is  highest  and  best  in  character  and  conduct, 
art  and  literature,  culture  and  civilization — but  all 
that  has  been  merely  incidental  and  secondary  to  its 
main  purpose  of  saving  men.  The  angel  said  to 
Joseph:  '^  Thou  shalt  call  his  name  Jesus:  for  he 
shall  save  his  people  from  their  sins."  Christ  defined 
his  own  mission,  when  he  said:  ''The  Son  of  man  is 
come  to  save  that  which  is  lost."  Paul  expressed  it, 
when  he  wrote:  ''Christ  Jesus  came  into  the  world 
to  save  sinners."  The  cry  of  a  human  soul,  when 
brought  to  a  sense  of  its  true  condition,  is  voiced  in 
the  anxious  and  despairing  question  of  the  jailer  of 
Philippi:     "What   must   I   do   to   be   saved?"     The 

S3 


54         CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

Bible  everywhere  bases  the  whole  Gospel  system 
on  the  lost  and  helpless  condition  of  the  race — some- 
times assuming  or  presupposing  it;  sometimes  em- 
phatically and  dogmatically  proclaiming  it,  and  again 
proceeding  with  irresistible  logic  to  demonstrate  it. 
In  short,  the  Word  of  God  exhausts  the  power  of 
human  language  and  imagery  in  presenting  the  desper- 
ate condition  of  the  lost  soul  out  of  Christ  in  this  life, 
and  the  hopelessness  of  its  destiny  in  the  life  to  come. 
In  short,  sin  and  death,  salvation  and  life,  constitute 
the  marrow  of  Bible  divinity;  and  outside  of  and  apart 
from  these,  the  Scriptures  have  no  message  that  has 
any  great  and  paramount  interest  for  a  human  soul. 
The  preaching  that  leaves  out  these  may  just  as  well 
cease  at  once  ;  for  its  narrowness  and  shallowness 
mark  it  with  impotence  and  foredoom  it  to  failure. 

The  Church  of  Christ,  as  commissioned  by  Him  for 
saving  men,  is  a  spiritual  agency.     Her  supreme  task 

A  Spiritual  ^^  ^^^  salvation  of  the  world — the  re- 
Agency,  making  of  men  in  righteousness,  by  the 
power  and  grace  of  Christ  accompanying  and  indors- 
ing the  commission  and  message  he  has  given  her. 
The  preacher  who  has  not  learned  this  has  not  learned 
the  alphabet  of  Christ.  He  needs  to  start  anew  in  his 
work  of  preparation.  His  aims,  under  Christ's  com- 
mission, are  spiritual,  not  secular.  The  implements 
of  his  warfare  are  spiritual,  not  carnal — '^  the  sword 
of  the  Spirit  "  being  his  chief  offensive  weapon.  He 
has  to  bring  the  world  into  subjection  to  Christ — not 
by  benevolence,  nor  by  philanthropy,  nor  by  social  re- 
form, but  by  the  Gospel;  not  by  reformation,  but  by 
regeneration  and  salvation  from  sin. 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  55 

SECTION  FIRST. 

Bible  Christianity  as  a  Saving  Power. 

The  preacher's  fundamental  theme  must,  therefore, 
be  Christianity  as  a  saving  power.  The  ultimate  first 
principle  for  him  is  not  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
Church  to  save  the  world  by  reforming  it,  but  that  it 
is  her  duty  to  reform  the  world  by  saving  it.  As  put 
in  the  famous  epigram  of  Bushnell:  *'  The  soul  of  all 
improvement  is  the  improvement  of  the  soul." 


I.  Regenerating  Power  and  Grace 
Fundamental. 

Let  it  be  emphasized  that  the  aim  of  the  preacher  is 
to  bring  in  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth,  and  to 
inaugurate  the  reign  of  Christ,  not  by  reforming  men, 
but  by  saving  them;  and  that  the  only  effective  agency 
in  saving  men  is  Christianity  as  a  regenerating  power. 

This  is  undoubtedly  the  Scriptural  view  on  this  sub- 
ject, as  that  view  is  everywhere  presented,  but  espe- 
cially as  it  is  presented  in  the  one  great  Man's  Moral 
Bible  treatise  on  the  way  of  salvation,  Disorder. 
Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  To  the  Roman — the 
man  of  power,  action,  law — Paul  wrote:  "I  am  not 
ashamed  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  for  it  is  the  power  of 
God  unto  salvation  to  every  one  that  believeth." 

After  making  this  bold  statement  the  apostle  pro- 
ceeds to  show  that  all  men,  Jews  and  Gentiles,  are 
under  the  condemnation  of  the  law,  and  that  the  fact 
that  the  Gospel  is  the  power  of  God  to  deliver  men 
from  this  lost  condition,  through  justification  by  faith 


56       Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

in  the  righteousness  of  God  in  Christ,  is  the  ground  of 
his  glorying  in  it. 

But  it  may  be  taken  to  be  demonstrable,  even  without 
recourse  to  the  clear  teaching  of  the  Scriptures  on  the 
subject — as  far  as  demonstration  can  be  said  to  be  ap- 
plicable to  the  region  of  contingent  thought — that  the 
evil  condition  of  human  nature  without  the  grace  of 
God,  and  the  resulting  evil  conditions  of  society  and 
of  politics,  are  such  as  can  be  met  by  nothing  less 
than  divine  regeneration.  Christianity  has  shown  it- 
self to  be  the  only  agency  able  to  remedy  the  abnormal 
moral  and  social  condition,  and  bring  about  the  moral 
reconstruction  of  the  individual  and  society.  In  short, 
man's  natural  state  is  one  of  moral  obliquity  and  dis- 
order, hopelessly  beyond  the  reach  of  everything  but 
the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Any  candid  and  adequate  investigation  brings  to 
light  abundant  evidence  that  human  nature  is  in  such 
disorder,  and  that  the  ideal  life  of  duty,  prescribed  by 
God  and  by  conscience,  has  become  impossible  to 
man  without  moral  renovation. 

This  disorder  is  apparent  in  that  condition  of  evil  in 
the  nature  out  of  which,  as  from  a  fountain,  all  the 
evil  of  human  conduct  flows.  Man's  moral  judgment 
is  confessedly  both  weakened  and  darkened;  his  moral 
feelings  are  both  deadened  and  perverted;  his  strong- 
est moral  impulses  are  persistently  inclined  toward 
evil,  so  that  while  his  whole  being  shows,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  voice  of  conscience,  that  he  was  un- 
doubtedly made  for  virtue,  he  is  now  just  as  evidently 
biased  toward  the  morally  evil. 

This  disorder  appears,  with  equal  clearness,  in  the 
fact  that  man's  moral  nature  does  not  work  harmon- 
iously under  the  moral  law,  either  as  moral  rule  or  as 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  57 

moral  mission.  In  none  of  his  great  relations  does  he, 
in  a  state  of  nature,  fulfil  his  mission  of  duty  and 
conform  his  conduct  to  the  requirements  of  God's  law. 
It  is  true  of  the  majority  of  mankind,  even  in  Christen- 
dom, that,  while  acknowledging  their  obligation  to 
supreme  devotion  to  God,  they  yet  practically  neglect 
or  even  reject  God;  that,  while  acknowledging  their 
obligation  to  a  proper  regard  for  and  care  of  their  own 
being,  they  yet  in  the  worst  sense  neglect  or  even 
abuse  that  being;  that,  while  freely  confessing  their 
obligation  to  do  to  others  as  they  would  that  others 
should  do  to  them,  they  yet  selfishly  disregard  the 
well-being  of  their  fellow-men,  or  even  do  their 
utmost  to  injure  them. 

Indeed,  this  is  true  of  men  universally,  except  so 
far  as  something  extraneous  comes  in  to  prevent  these 
results.  Positive  law  and  government,  using  force  to 
restrain  evil  and  to  inflict  penalty,  are  necessary  for 
the  preservation  of  the  individual  and  society  from 
destruction;  and  even  these  have  never  been  able  to 
preserve  either  the  man  or  the  State  from  corruption 
and  anarchy  and  ruin,  without  the  added  regenerating 
power  of  vital  Christianity. 

Following  upon  man's  condition  of  disorder,  there 
is  found  everywhere  the  inevitable  accompaniment  of 
wreck  and  wretchedness  that  attaches  to  Wreck  and 
all  breaking  of  law,  as  at  once  penalty  Wretchedness, 
for  transgression  and  a  warning  against  ruin.  Broken 
law  is  inexorable  to  the  impenitent.  The  penalty  of 
immoral  conduct  is  not  always  immediate,  for  that 
might  prevent  the  possibility  of  morality;  but  the 
extreme  penalty  of  moral  death  is  in  the  end  inevi- 
table. ''Thou  shalt  surely  die"  was  the  penalty 
attached  to  the  first  transgression,  and  it  is  the  pen- 


58      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

alty  that  must  follow  the  moral  disorder  so  manifest 
and  so  wide-spread  in  man's  nature  and  the  world. 
There  is  neither  ultimate  secrecy  nor  impunity  for  sin 
in  God's  moral  government.  The  only  escape  from 
the  penalty  is  to  be  found  in  removal  of  the  disorder. 

The  great  practical  moral  question  in  all  ages  has 
therefore  been:  Is  there  any  way  of  escape  or  of  ?no?'al 
restoration  ?  The  answer  of  the  ages,  that  rings  out 
clearly  everywhere,  is,  that  Christianity  has  proved 
itself,  not  only  philosophically  but  also  historically,  the 
only  effective  agency  in  man's  deliverance  and  moral 
renovation  and  reconstruction.  The  absolute  certainty 
of  this  conclusion  appears  from  the  very  conditions  of 
any  true  solution  of  the  problem  involved,  (i)  Any 
Requirements   effective    scheme    of     moral    renovation 

of  the  Case,  must  take  into  account  all  the  main  facts 
of  man's  moral  nature,  moral  condition,  and  moral  des- 
tiny. (2)  It  must  not  overlook  the  wreck  of  the  moral 
manhood,  nor  the  failure  of  the  life  of  man  to  attain  to 
the  moral  ideal;  but  must  furnish  a  power  adequate  to 
the  reconstruction  of  the  one,  and  a  universal  motive 
and  mission  equal  to  the  task  of  lifting  up  the  other  to 
the  normal  and  ideal  standard.  (3)  It  must  likewise 
make  provision  for  counteracting  the  natural  forces 
that  are  set  to  work  by  transgression  of  law,  and  that 
must  otherwise  doom  man  to  perpetual  pain  and  ruin; 
and  for  remaking  or  reconstructing  the  human  wreck. 

Much  of  the  thinking  of  the  ages  has*  been  devoted 
to  this  problem,  and  innumerable  solutions  have  been 
proposed.  These  solutions,  by  their  failure  to  meet 
the  conditions  of  the  problem,  or  requirements  of  the 
case,  as  just  stated,  have  proved  themselves  worthless. 
Self-reconstruction  has  been  shown,  both  philosophic- 
ally and  historically,  to  be  impracticable.     The  false 


THE    preacher's   MESSAGE.  59 

religions — Confucianism,  Brahmanism,  Buddhism,  and 
Mohammedanism — have  in  the  same  way  been  proved 
insufficient.  Man's  new  philosophies  all  the  way  up  to 
date — Pantheism,  Positivism,  Culturism,  Secularism — 
have  been  shown  in  the  same  way  to  be  worthless. 

Christianity  alone  meets  the  demands  legitimately 
made  of  any  scheme  of  moral  reconstruction  that  has 
any  right  to  claim  the  attention  of  man-  Christianity's  ' 
kind;  and  it  thereby  demonstrates  itself  Proposals. 
to  be  the  only  adequate  solution  of  the  great  moral 
problem.  It  takes  into  account  the  facts  of  man's 
natural  condition  of  moral  disorder.  It  takes  full 
cognizance  of  the  all-important  facts  of  the  wreck  of 
the  moral  manhood  and  the  failure  in  the  moral  task. 
It  provides  for  the  restoration  of  the  former  by  an 
almighty  reconstructing  agency,  the  Holy  Spirit;  and 
for  the  lifting  up  of  the  latter  by  the  new  and  universal 
motive  power  of  divine  faith  and  love,  and  by  an 
elevating  and  everlasting  mission  for  the  glory  of  God. 
It  embodies  its  perfect  system  of  morality  and  its 
marvelous  scheme  of  grace  in  a  person,  Jesus  Christ, 
who  is  at  once  the  perfect  example  of  human  right- 
doing  and  self-sacrifice,  the  complete  exhibition  of 
divine  love  for  man,  and  the  almighty  helper  of  man 
in  his  struggle  up  toward  the  right  life  and  manhood. 
It  seats  upon  the  throne  of  the  universe  the  once 
crucified  but  now  risen  and  ascended  Savior  as  Lord, 
to  whom  all  authority  and  all  power  in  heaven  and 
earth  are  given,  to  save  from  the  bondage  and  defile- 
ment of  sin,  and  from  its  dreadful  consequences,  all 
sinners  who  repent  and  believe  on  him. 

Making  such  provision  for  human  reconstruction, 
Christianity  has  shown  itself  able  to  make  over  the 
individual  life,  and  with  equal  ease  to  transform  the 


6o      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

cultivated  Saul  of  Tarsus  and  the  savage  Africaner 
into  ideal  men;  and  to  reconstruct  the  social  life, 
Christianity  ^^  ^"  the  early  transformation  of  the 
Reconstructs.  Roman  Empire  and  the  savage  Anglo- 
Saxons,  and  in  the  later  making  over  of  the  Sandwich 
Islanders,  Fuegians,  and  South  Sea  Islanders. 

Christianity  as  a  regenerating  and  saving  power  is 
therefore  necessarily  and  essentially  the  message  of 
the  preacher  to  men,  and  the  only  one  that  has  in  it 
any  gospel  for  men. 

II.     The  Ignoring  of  Regeneration  Fatal. 

It  follows  that  any  other  method  than  that  by  the 
application  of  the  Gospel,  with  its  saving  power,  even 
tho  that  method  be  presented  and  advocated  by  the 
Church,  must  inevitably  prove  a  failure  in  the  end. 
It  is  a  fatal  objection  to  all  such  methods,  by  whomso- 
ever suggested,  adopted,  or  advocated,  that  they  deal 
only  with  the  surface  symptoms,  and  do  not  touch  the 
deep-lying  seat  of  the  fatal  moral  disease.  Those  who 
make  use  of  them  must  logically  be  classed  with  the 
prophets  and  priests  of  old,  against  whom  Jeremiah 
brought   the   accusation   of   the    Lord: 

"  They  have  healed  also  the  hurt  of  the  daughter  of  my  people 
slightly,  saying,  Peace,  peace  ;  when  there  is  no  peace  "  (Jer.  vi.  14). 


T/ie  Relatio7is  of  Preaching  to  Reform. 

It  can  be  made  abundantly  clear  that  the  multitudi- 
nous schemes  of  reform  that  have  not  their  root  in 
Christianity  must  fail  of  accomplishing  the  moral 
results  desired  and  aimed  at. 


THE   preacher's   MESSAGE.  63 

No  scheme  of  government  can  give  permanent  of  a 
true  elevation  to  society  without  the  aid  of  Christie 
ity.  Two  things  are  absolutely  necessary  in  ordel" 
that  society  may  be  made  what  it  should  be  :  A  stand- 
ard of  absolute  right  and  justice  must  be  furnished 
and  put  into  the  hands  and  minds  of  rulers  and  sub- 
jects, to  be  the  perfect  guide  of  both;  and  a  power 
must  be  provided  to  bring  men  in  their  conduct  up 
to  this  standard.  Christianity  alone  furnishes  the 
requisite  standard  and  necessary  transforming  power. 
No  scheme  of  philosophy  or  of  moral  reform  can  give 
permanent  elevation  to  society,  except  as  it  adopts 
the  aims  and  uses  the  means  furnished  by  the  Chris- 
tian system.  In  order  to  the  actual  removal  of  the 
various  evils  of  society,  the  moral  disorder  of  man's 
nature  in  which  they  have  their  origin  must  be  re- 
moved. The  Christian  system  alone  provides  the 
remedy  required. 

No  scheme  of  education  can  lead  to  the  permanent 
elevation  of  society,  except  as  it  is  Christian  educa- 
tion. Education  as  divorced  from  Christianity  can 
only  develop  what  is  in  the  man.  As  man's  nature  is 
in  a  condition  of  moral  disorder,  even  education  of 
the  most  liberal  and  comprehensive  character  must 
fail  to  purify  and  transform  the  man,  and  may  at  the 
highest  make  no  more  than  a  Lord  Bacon,  or  a  Byron, 
or  a  Burr,  or  a  Stuart  Mill.  If  men  are  good,  educa- 
tion will  make  them  the  more  powerful  for  good;  if 
they  are  bad,  it  will  only  make  them  stronger  for  evil. 
Education,  transformed,  elevated,  and  controlled  by 
the  spirit  of  Christ,  is  the  only  kind  that  can  essen- 
tially and  permanently  elevate  society. 

These  remarks  are  especially  applicable  to  all  such 
agencies  as  Mr.  Stead's  "  Civic  Church,"  by  which  he 


6o      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

cultioses  to  elevate  the  masses,  as  well  as  to  all  the 
int^ces  of  socialistic  secularism.  It  has  no  root  in 
^hrist,  in  God's  law  of  right  and  justice,  or  in  the  Word 
of  God;  and  no  motive  but  a  sentimental  notion  of  a 
brotherhood  without  a  basis  in  a  Divine  Fatherhood, 
and  which  could  not,  therefore,  prove  effective  even 
with  regenerate  men,  much  less  with  a  morally  corrupt 
and  debased  mass  of  men. 

If  the  preceding  observations  are  well  grounded,  it 

follows  that  the  present  effort  in  much  of  the  preach- 

1.  TheGospel    ^"^  apparently  so  popular  in  many  quar- 

not Subsidiary  ters,   to    subordinate   the    mission    and 

to  Reform.  ^^^^^  ^^  ^^^  Church  to  the  various  com- 
mon reform  activities,  is  in  the  wrong  direction,  and 
must  ultimately  not  only  fail  but  also  prove  most  posi- 
tively harmful.  The  Gospel  is  not  something  merely 
subsidiary  to  reform. 

I.  This  subordination  is  entirely  at  variance  with 
the  whole  method  and  spirit  of  Christ  and  his  religion, 

(1)  Not  the      ^"^  ^^^^^  ^^^   method   of  the  Apostles. 

Method  of       The    Duke   of  Argyll    recently  brought 

out  this  point  very  clearly  in  his  article 

on  ** Christian  Socialism"  in  T/ie  Nitieteenth  Ce?ittiry  for 

November,  1894.     He  writes  : 

"It  has  been  well  said  by  a  modern  philosopher  that  the  whole 
system  of  human  society  rests  on  a  few  fundamental  conceptions  and 
a  few  accepted  beliefs.  And  this  is  exactly  what  Christianity  sup- 
plied to  a  world  which  had  come  to  believe  in  nothing.  Without  conde- 
scending to  take  the  least  notice  of  anything  that  could  be  connected 
with  the  politics  of  its  own  early  days,  without  breathing  one  word 
which  can  be  construed  as  taking  any  side  in  the  great  secular  con- 
tests of  men,  whether  then  or  since,  it  did,  nevertheless,  bring  in  and 
establish  a  few  fundamental  conceptions  and  beliefs  which  have  trans- 
formed the  world.     Beyond  this  it  deliberately  abstained  from  going. 

"  There  is  nothing  more  striking,  more  divine,  than  its  majestic 


THE    preacher's   MESSAGE.  63 

reticence.     It  made   no   attack   upon   anything  in  the  nature  of  a 
political  institution. 

' '  Although  many  of  the  evils  under  which  heathendom  was  then 
suffering  were  undoubtedly  and  closely  connected  with  bad  sys- 
tems and  principles  of  government,  Christianity  was  silent  upon 
them  all.  Save  in  so  far  as,  in  its  own  higher  sphere,  it  implanted 
some  new  truth  pregnant  with  new  consequences,  it  left  them  all  to  be 
judged  by  the  more  enlightened  reason  and  the  gradually  awakened 
conscience  of  mankind.  There  is  no  method  of  reform  so  powerful  as 
this.  If  alongside  of  any  false  and  corrupt  belief,  or  any  vicious  and 
cruel  custom,  however  strong  and  however  deeply  rooted  these  may 
be,  we  can  succeed  in  planting  successfully  some  one  incompatible 
idea,  then,  without  the  noise  of  controversy  or  the  clash  of  battle, 
those  beliefs  and  customs  will  wane  and  die.  It  was  thus  that  Chris- 
tianity, without  a  single  word  of  direct  attack,  killed  off  one  of  the 
greatest  and  most  universal  curses  of  the  pagan  world — the  ever- 
deepening  curse  of  slavery.  The  antagonistic  and  incompatible  truth 
which  had  this  effect  was  among  the  profoundest  in  the  Christian  sys- 
tem, namely  :  the  inalienable  dignity,  value,  and  responsibility  of  the 
individual  human  soul.  But  this  truth  was  left  to  work  out  its  own 
results  without  any  attempt  to  anticipate  that  work  in  its  thousand 
applications." 

This  is  the  rational  side  of  the  principle  presented 
by  Dr.  Chalmers,  in  his  celebrated  sermon  on  *'The 
Expulsive  Power  of  a  New  Affection."  This  is  un- 
doubtedly the  true  and  effective  method  of  procedure 
for  the  preacher  of  the  present  day.  It  is  well  for 
him  to  keep  to  the  great  example  of  Christ  and  to 
practise  the  Apostolic  rule.  That  gives  him  an 
immense  domain;  for  those  far-reaching  moral  and 
spiritual  truths  that  were  the  only  theme  of  our  Lord 
and  his  Apostles  take  in  the  question  as  to  what 
extent  the  evils  of  the  world,  social  and  political,  are 
directly  due  to  the  failure  of  men  to  come  up  to 
Christ's  standard  of  doctrine  and  of  precept;  and  that 
is  a  question  of  inexhaustible  variety  and  of  the  widest 
reach. 


64      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

The    recently    proposed    method   inevitably    leads 
the  preacher  and   the  Church   out  of  the    sphere   of 

(2)  Trenches     religion    into    that  of   the    State  and  of 
upon  Politics,   politics,  and  can  only  result  in  the  same 

complications  of  Church  and  State  that  have  been  the 
curse  of  both,  and  the  cause  of  political  and  religious 
oppression  and  persecution  in  past  ages.  The  State 
goes  beyond  its  sphere,  and  encroaches  upon  the  free- 
dom of  the  individual,  when  it  says  that  the  church- 
member  shall  do  this  or  that,  or  shall  refrain  from 
doing  this  or  that,  in  matters  that  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  field  of  politics  as  such.  The  Church  takes 
undue  liberties  with  the  rights  of  conscience  when  it 
says  that,  in  the  sphere  of  purely  secular  or  political 
activity,  its  members  shall  do  this  and  shall  not  do 
that.  The  result,  in  the  former  case,  is  always  politi- 
cal oppression,  and  in  extreme  cases  political  persecu- 
tion. In  the  latter  case,  it  is  always  religious  oppres- 
sion, or  religious  ostracism  or  persecution. 

This    new    method    inevitably  leads    the    preacher 

(3)  Lead  to      ^^^^  ^^^  Church  back  to  the  system  of 
Legalism  and  self-righteousness   and   formal  and   out- 
Formality,     ward  works,  from  the  bondage  of  which 

the  Reformation  emancipated  Protestant  Christendom. 
Human  conduct  is  operated  on  by  two  great  agen- 
cies :  by  outward  rule  and  by  inward  principle.  The 
true  method  of  the  Christian  religion,  as  has  been 
seen,  is  to  regenerate  the  man  and  implant  within  him 
the  inward  principle  that  shall  substantially  work 
itself  out  in  the  Christian  life.  The  Romish  Church 
had  substituted  for  this  inward  principle  the  outward 
rule,  and  its  elaborate  system  of  rules,  covering  all 
human  activities  and  claiming  control  over  both 
Church    and    State,    had    destroyed    the    spontaneous 


THE    preacher's    MESSAGE.  65 

activities  of  the  inward  principle  of  faith.  It  called 
for  work  done  in  conformity  with  its  rules,  and  that 
made  life  a  drudgery  and  a  weariness  of  the  flesh. 
Its  morality  had  become  a  morality  of  outward  for- 
mality and  rules.  Its  system  of  outward  works  had 
usurped  the  place  of  the  life  of  faith,  and  held  all  the 
world  in  absolute  bondage.  It  was  from  this  bondage 
of  outward  rule  that  the  Reformers  broke  loose,  in 
their  great  movement  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
sought  to  carry  back  the  Church  to  the  control  of  the 
inner  principles  of  Christian  faith. 

There  are  two  modes  of  preaching,  in  the  present 
age,  that  are  diametrically  opposed.  The  one  presses 
the  Gospel  upon  men  as  a  saving  power,  aims  at 
regeneration,  and  encourages  spontaneous  conformity 
to  Gospel  principles,  which  is  the  old  method.  The 
other  dwells  constantly  upon  social  and  political  ques- 
tions, and  attempts  to  lay  down  rules  that  shall  govern 
the  entire  range  of  human  activity,  and  to  say  to  men, 
everywhere  and  on  every  occasion,  "Thus  thou  shalt 
do,  and  thus."  The  former  is  the  method  of  the 
Reformation,  and  the  true  method  of  Protestant 
Christendom;  the  latter,  the  method  of  the  new 
reformers  and  the  old  Romanism.  The  one,  as  Paul 
teaches,  carries  back  the  Church  to  the  covenant 
''from  the  Mount  Sinai,  which  gendereth  bondage" 
(Gal.  iv.  24)  to  ritual  observance  and  legal  obedi- 
ence; the  other  carries  her  forward  to  the  covenant 
that  is  from  Mount  Zion,  from  '*  the  Jerusalem  above 
which  is  free,  which  is  the  mother  of  us  all,"  and  tends 
to  free  spiritual  activity  by  bringing  her  members  more 
thoroughly  under  the  influence  of  love,  the  higher  law 
of  the  spirit  of  liberty.  See  Rom.  viii.  and  xiii.  8,  lo. 
It  is  difficult  to  see  how  anything  can  come  from  this 


66      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

new  departure,  except  the  old  evil  and  the  old  bond- 
age of  ritualism  and  legalism. 

The  fatal  defect  of  the  new  method  is,  that  it 
leads  to  the  neglect  of  the  vital  matter  of  all  Chris- 

(4)  Fatal  to     tian   teaching — the    presentation  of   the 

the  Gospel,  saving  doctrines  of  the  Gospel — and  to 
the  exaltation  into  its  place  of  social  problems,  politi- 
cal issues,  and  minor  morals  generally. 

However  clearly  these  ethical  and  political  matters 
may  be  presented,  in  the  preaching  that  dwells  exten- 
sively or  exclusively  upon  them,  such  preaching  does 
nothing  toward  regenerating  men,  and  thereby  pre- 
paring in  them  the  moral  character  that  would  lead 
them  to  conform  to  the  requirements  laid  down.  But 
it  will  hardly  be  denied  that  the  average  preacher  fails 
to  present  such  matters  clearly;  for,  while  he  may  be 
most  familiar  with  the  fundamental  theological  and 
moral  principles,  and  abundantly  qualified  to  present 
these  principles,  he  is  usually — and  that  justly — looked 
upon  by  the  mass  of  intellectual  men  as  the  last  man 
to  take  up  and  attempt  to  discuss  and  settle  such 
industrial,  social,  and  civic  problems.  As  the  Duke 
of  Argyll  shows,  in  the  article  already  referred  to, 
even  Dr.  Chalmers  failed,  in  undertaking  to  solve  the 
problems  of  poverty  practically,  tho  perfectly  familiar 
with  the  conditions  involved. 

The  true  vocation   of  the  preacher,    in  relation  to 

2.  True  Relation  ^^^  working  out  of  the  social  and  politi- 

of  the  Preacher  cal  problems  of  the  day,  may  perhaps  be 

to  Reform,      summed  up  in  the  following  particulars  : 

It    is    the    preacher's    fundamental  and    all-impor- 
tant task   to  bring   about,    through  the  preaching   of 
Christianity    as    a    saving    power,    the 
'  regeneration  of  individual  men — that  is. 


THE    preacher's    MESSAGE.  67 

to  make  Christians  of  them.  That  alone  makes  reform 
possible,  and  that  makes  it  practicable,  by  making 
Christian  conscience   and   Christian  character. 

It  is  his  task    to  indoctrinate  the  individual  mem- 
bers of  the  Church  in  the  great  fundamental  principles 

of  Christianity  as  a  system  of  salvation,     .-,.  -  .  , 

-^ '     C2 )  To  Indoc- 

and  to  educate  and  to  inspire  individual  txinate  in  Gos- 
men,  especially  men  of  marked  ability  P^l  Principles, 
and  fitness,  to  become  leaders  and  guides  and  influen- 
tial factors  of  society,  along  the  lines  and  in  the  inter- 
ests of  righteousness  and  of  Christian  living  and  self- 
sacrifice  for  mankind.  It  is  especially  his  duty  to 
present  and  enforce  the  great  principles  of  the  moral 
law  and  of  Christianity  itself,  that  men  are  to  apply  in 
the  practical  solution  of  the  problems  that  are  so 
prominently  before  the  public  mind. 

But  in  these  days  of  so  complicated  social  relations 
and  of  such  complex  social  problems,  it  would  be 
arrant  folly  for  the  preacher  himself  to  attempt  to 
make  specific  and  exhaustive  application  of  the  Gospel 
principles  to  all  those  relations  and  problems.  The 
field  is  too  vast;  and  the  man  who  attempts  to  cover 
it  in  this  way  will  inevitably  become  involved  in  the 
endless  unimportant  details  and  lose  sight  of  all- 
important  vital  principles.  The  method  of  Christ 
and  of  the  primitive  Christianity  is  the  simple  and 
only  true  and  effective  method.  There  are  multitudes 
among  the  members  of  the  Christian  Agency  of 
Church — professors,  lawyers,  physicians.  Laymen, 
engineers,  business  men,  farmers,  artisans,  who  repre- 
sent vast  practical  knowledge  along  all  lines,  and 
immense  brain-power — in  whose  mind  the  preacher  is 
sent  to  fix  the  principles  of  righteousness  and  benevo- 
lence that  should  control  all  the  conduct  and  relations 


68      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

of  men.  These  men  have  the  qualifications — of  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  the  various  spheres  of  life  and 
activity,  industrial,  social,  political,  and  moral,  and 
of  practical  sense  and  experience  in  affairs — that  the 
average  preacher  can  not  be  expected  to  have,  and 
that  are  essential  to  the  right  application  of  the 
principles  of  the  Gospel  to  the  practical  solution  of  all 
the  difficult  problems  at  present  demanding  solution. 
It  is  in  this  way,  through  the  Gospel  message  and  the 
Christian  inspiration  and  instruction  of  the  pulpit, 
that  Christianity  has  in  time  past  revolutionized  the 
world;  and  in  this  way  it  may  be  expected  to  bring 
like  results  in  time  to  come. 

It  is  the  preacher's  task,  also,  to  make  conscience 
in    society,    by   persistently   pressing   upon    men    the 

C3)  To  Make     authority    of    the   law    of    God    and   of 

Conscience.  Christ  over  the  public  conscience. 
Without  such  creation  and  development  of  conscience, 
all  attempts  at  reform  must  necessarily  be  evanescent, 
since  they  will  have  no  root  in  the  moral  convictions 
and  character  of  the  community  to  support  them. 
But  this  subject  will  be  treated  more  fully  under  the 
preaching  of  the  law,  as  a  part  of  the  preacher's 
message. 

It  is  the  preacher's  task,  finally,  to  furnish  the  moral 
strength  and  spirit  needed  by  the  varied  ministries  of 

(4)  To  Give  he]p  and  healing  that  assist  in  the  work 
Tone  to  Society,  of  elevating  society.  This  ht  can  do 
most  efficiently  by  enlarging  the  views  of  men  and  by 
exalting  their  Christian  character  and  ideals.  His 
work  is,  by  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel,  to  lead  men  to 
Christian  views  of  benevolence  and  philanthropy  and 
human  brotherhood,  and  to  Christlike  self-sacrifice  in 
the  interests  of  humanity  and  for   the  glory  of  God. 


THE    preacher's   MESSAGE.  69 

The    right  kind  of   preaching  unquestionably  has  an 
immense  moral  influence  in  this  direction. 

Thomas  Chalmers,   Scotland's  most  famous  pulpit 
orator,  furnishes  a  historic  example  of  the  worthlessness 
of  the  preaching  that  aims  at  reform  with-    g  Futility  of 
out  regeneration.      For  many  years  he  de-     the  Popular 
voted  his  splendid  eloquence  to  the  task       Method, 
of  trying  to  make  men  better  by  secular  motives,  dilat- 
ing upon  ''  the  meanness  of  dishonesty,  the  villainy  of 
falsehood,"  and  kindred  subjects.     After  the  regener- 
ating grace  of  God  had  transformed  the  preacher  and 
opened  his  eyes  to  divine  realities,  he  summed  up  the 
results  of  his  comparatively  wasted  years  when,  under 
stress  of  conscience — in  an  address  delivered   to  the 
inhabitants  of  Kilmany,  Fifeshire,  in  1815,  the  year  of 
his  translation  to  Glasgow — he  said : 

"  I  never  heard  of  any  such  reformation  having  been  effected  :  if 
there  was  anything  at  all  brought  about  in  this  way  it  is  more  than  I 
ever  got  any  account  of.  It  was  not  until  the  free  offer  of  forgive- 
ness through  the  blood  of  Christ  was  urged  upon  men,  that  I  ever 
heard  of  any  of  those  subordinate  reformations," 

The  practical  futility  of  the  popular  method,  of  sub- 
stituting the  preaching  of  morality  for  that  of  the 
Gospel,  and  of  reform  for  that  of  regen-  Recent  Illus- 
eration,  has  had  abundant  illustration  in  trations. 
the  struggles  for  moral,  social,  and  municipal  reform, 
in  our  cities,  in  the  cases  in  which  the  clergy  have 
been  the  leaders  and  have  applied  the  new  method. 
The  work  has  been  shown  by  the  results  to  be  mere 
surface  work,  followed  by  inevitable  reaction  and 
deeper  and  more  widely  pervading  corruption.  The 
reform,  in  such  instances,  is  often  merely  a  matter  of 
outward  decency  in  appearance,  to  be  thrown  off  as 


yo         CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE   MINISTRY. 

soon  as  the  public  gaze  is  withdrawn.  It  proceeds 
and  returns  in  spasmodic  cycles.  When  corruption  in 
a  great  commercial  metropolis  becomes  absolutely  un- 
endurable, the  public  journals  set  to  work  to  expose 
it;  the  preachers  join  in  denouncing  it;  decent  citizens 
whose  comfort  or  pocket  has  been  seriously  affected 
raise  their  voices  against  it;  practical  politicians,  who 
always  know  ''  which  way  the  wind  blows,"  hasten,  in 
the  role  of  reformers,  to  get  control  of  the  movement 
and  to  profit  by  it;  the  corrupt  leaders  and  bosses, 
against  whom  public  indignation  is  turned,  hide  them- 
selves for  a  time,  while  some  of  their  miserable  and 
insignificant  tools  vicariously  suffer  for  them,  and  the 
people  rejoice  over  a  "glorious  revolution!"  Soon 
the  waking  up  comes,  when  it  is  found  that  the  great 
seething  heart  of  corruption,  whether  designated  as 
Tweedism  or  as  Tammanyism,  has  not  been  changed 
nor  affected  in  the  slightest  degree,  and  that  the  new 
political  bosses  are  largely  men  with  the  same  unre- 
generate  hearts  as  the  old,  and  equally  ready  to  illus- 
trate Vergil's  ''facilis  descensus  Averni."  Anon  the 
old  lethargy  returns,  and  the  people  once  more  find 
themselves  helpless  in  the  grip  of  organized  vice;  and 
immorality  and  crime  again  hold  high  carnival.  Such 
is  inevitably  the  last  result  of  even  honest,  earnest 
Christian  work,  that  seeks  only  outward  reform  and 
not  inward  regeneration — a  result  always  conspicu- 
ously illustrating,  at  the  same  time,  both  the  futility  of 
the  new  reformer's  method,  and  the  absolute  necessity 
for  a  return  to  the  method  of  Christ  and  primitive 
Christianity.  It  is  thereby  demonstrated,  for  the  time 
being,  that  no  mere  thin  blanket  of  decency  can  cover 
and  smother  the  deep-burning  fires  and  Titanic  forces 
of  a  great  moral  Vesuvius,  and  insure  the  safety  of 


THE    PREACHERS    MESSAGE.  7 1 

those  who   take   refuge  upon   it.     The  volcanic  fires 
must  first  be  put  out  by  Almighty  Power. 

Equally  powerless  for  securing  genuine  reform  is  the 
legal  method  so  often  advocated.  It  is  a  good  thing 
to  have  wise  and  just  laws  on  the  statute  Reformation  by 
books.  The  mere  existence  of  such  laws  I^aw. 
raises  a  moral  presumption  against  unrighteousness 
and  vice  and  crime.  But  no  pressure  of  law,  even  in 
a  nation  with  despotic  government,  can  permanently 
hold  down  the  forces  of  evil.  Much  less  can  it  do  this 
in  a  democratic  nation,  where  the  pressure  of  law  de- 
creases as  the  iniquity  increases.  Regeneration  must 
go  before  and  make  and  sustain  the  law. 

SECTION  SECOND. 
Both  Law  and  Gospel  Essential  to  the  Message. 

But  to  be  more  specific,  the  preacher  must  present 
with  all  clearness  and  fulness  the  law  of  God  and 
man's  lost  condition  under  it,  and  the  Gospel  provision 
for  salvation. 

It  must  go  with  the  saying  that  the  preacher's  mes- 
sage, both  in  its  matter  and  its  authority,  rests  back 
on  the  Word  of  God.  It  behooves  him  to  inquire  dili- 
gently and  first  of  all :  What  has  the  Divine  Word  to 
say  on  this  all-important  subject  of  the  way  of  salva- 
tion ? 

The  pages  of  the  Bible  obviously  abound  in  incidental 
presentations,  literal  and  figurative,  of  the  nature  and 
method  of  salvation.  But,  as  this  is  the  one  all-im- 
portant subject  of  revelation,  it  is  not  left  to  mere 
incidental  illustration.  In  the  Old  Testament,  it  is  the 
heart  of  the  whole  sacrificial  and  priestly  system  and 


72  CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

ritual,  on  which  the  religion  of  Judaism  rested  or  of 
which   it  mainly  consisted.     In  the   New  Testament, 

The  Bible  Text- ^^^^^    ^^    ^^^  principal   Epistles  of  Paul 
Books  of  Salva-  are  devoted  to  the  doctrine  of  salvation, 
tioii*  with  the  purpose  of  exhibiting  the  truth 

on  that  subject,  and  of  guarding  against  the  three 
errors  into  which  Jew,  Greek,  and  Roman — the  world- 
races  of  that  age  and  the  representative  and  ty.pical 
men  of  all  time — were  peculiarly  liable  to  fall.  In  the 
Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  it  is  shown  for  the  Jew,  the 
representative  of  religious  forms  and  ceremonies,  that 
man  is  not  to  be  saved  by  the  observances  of  the  cere- 
monial law,  in  which  the  Jew  was  inclined  to  trust;  but 
by  faith  in  Christ  and  *'  circumcision  of  the  heart."  In 
the  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians,  it  is  made  clear  to  the 
Greek,  the  representative  of  reason  and  philosophy, 
that  salvation  is  not  to  be  attained  by  human  wisdom, 
on  which  he  was  accustomed  to  rest  his  faith;  but  by 
faith  in  ''Jesus  Christ  and  him  crucified,"  ''who  of 
God  is  made  unto  us  wisdom  and  righteousness,  and 
sanctification,  and  redemption."  In  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  it  is  demonstrated  for  the  Roman,  the  repre- 
sentative of  activity  and  works  and  law,  that  salvation 
can  not  be  secured  by  any  human  acts  or  works  in  the 
observance  of  any  law  whatsoever;  but,  that  "  being 
justified  by  faith,  we  have  peace  with  God  through  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  the  vicarious  sacrifice  for  sin. 

Of  these  three  Epistles,  that  to  the  Romans  mani- 
festly approaches  nearest  to  being  of  universal  appli- 
cation, partaking  of  the  character  of  a  systematic 
treatise,  and  in  its  sweep  taking  in  the  whole  range  of 
law,  human  and  divine.  Moreover,  it  has  peculiar 
applicability  to  the  English-speaking  peoples,  the  mod- 
ern representatives  of  law^  in  free  governmental  insti- 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  73 

tutions  and  vast  extent  of  rule,  and  of  works^  in  the 
development  and  extension  of  industrial  enterprise 
and  the  solution  of  the  great  industrial  and  social 
problems.  For  us  especially,  and  in  this  age,  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  may,  therefore,  be  taken  as 
God's  presentation,  according  to  Paul,  of  the  preach- 
er's message,  in  the  business  of  saving  mankind. 
Preaching  that  omits  any  of  its  great  features,  or  that 
fails  to  give  prominence  to  what  it  emphasizes,  must 
be  in  so  far  defective. 

In  taking  this  Epistle  as  a  guide  and  authority  in 
ascertaining  what  the  preacher's  message  of  salvation 
should  be,  it  is  easily  to  be  seen  that,  in  order  to  com- 
pleteness, two  things  must  always  be  presented:  the 
law  as  exhibiting  and  enforcing  the  lost  condition  of 
the  sinner;  and  the  Gospel  as  the  divine  provision  for 
his  salvation. 

It  is  not  the  preaching  of  the  law  in  itself,  or  for  its 
own  sake,  that  is  to  be  advocated.  There  may  be 
much  preaching  of  law  that  does  not  result  in  the  sal- 
vation of  sinners;  either  because  it  does  not  so  much 
as  suggest  either  the  Gospel  or  salvation,  or  because 
it  does  not  bring  men  into  relation  to  the  Law-giver, 
so  as  to  bring  out  the  sense  of  responsibility  and  of 
lost  condition  under  the  law.  There  is  also  assuredly, 
in  this  age,  much  preaching  of  love^  that  has  no  tend- 
ency to  save  man;  because  there  is  no  law-work  back 
of  it  to  bring  home  to  the  sinner  his  lost  condition 
that  leaves  him  in  perishing  need  of  the  Gospel.  Paul 
said:  "When  the  law  came,  sin  revived  and  I  died;  " 
and  that  is  the  condition  precedent  to  salvation. 


74      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 


I.     The  Law  the  Starting-point  in  the 
Message. 

The  preacher  must  lay  the  foundation  for  the  saving 
power  of  the  Gospel  by  presenting  the  law,  in  all  the 
length  and  breadth  of  its  requirement,  and  in  all  the 
solemnity  and  awfulness  of  its  sanctions;  in  fact,  with 
the  very  definiteness  and  clearness  and  with  the  divine 
authority  of  the  Word  of  God. 

The  generation  past,  in  this  country,  has  heard  but 
little  of  the  law  of  God.  ''Come  to  Jesus";  ''Come 
to  Jesus";  "Go  work";  "Go  work" — this  has  too 
often  been  regarded  and  affirmed  as  making  up  the  sum 
of  all  necessary  and  helpful  theology.  It  is  in  fact  mere 
shallow  sentimentalism — totally  inadequate,  either  to 
rouse  any  one  to  a  sense  of  his  need  of  salvation,  or  to 
develop  anything  like  Christian  character. 

The  result  has  been  an  almost  universal  reign  of 
shallow  evangelism,  and  a  rain  of  superficial  evangel- 
ists, that  have  well-nigh  killed  out  the  life  of  the 
Church.  Hence,  the  conscious  impotence  of  pastors 
and  people,  and  the  meager  ingatherings  into  the 
Church  in  connection  with  the  ordinary  means  of 
grace.  Hence,  the  periodical  sending  for  the  travel- 
ing evangelist,  the  boy-preacher,  the  student,  or  the 
talking  layman,  or  the  praying-band;  and  the  intro- 
duction of  sentimental  and  mass-meeting  methods,  in 
order  to  enlarge  the  membership  of  the  churches. 
Hence,  from  another  side,  the  universal  worldliness 
and  the  rage  for  amusements  and  follies,  and  the  mak- 
ing of  life  a  time  of  play,  without  any  aim,  rather  than 
a  period  of  earnest  work  for  the  accomplishment  of  a 
rational  mission.     Hence,  from  still  another  side,  or 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  75 

by  further  evolution,  the  universal  and   awful  moral 
corruption,  individual,  social,  and  political. 

**  Back  to  the  law  !  "  should  be  the  cry  in  this  age  of 
every  preacher  who  has  any  conception  of  the  real 
situation  of  things  in  this  land,  or  any  adequate  sense 
of  the  relations  of  the  divine  law  to  individual  and 
public  conscience,  character,  and  life.  And  the  man, 
assuredly,  who  has  no  proper  conception  of  these 
things,  should  make  haste  to  get  such  a  conception, 
for  life  and  death  depend  upon  its  being  gained 
quickly. 

As  in  Paul's  presentation  of  the  way  of  salvation  to 
the  Romans,  so  now,  in  the  preaching  of     God's  law  in 
Bible  Christianity  as  a  saving  power,  the  Various  Aspects, 
law  of  God  needs  to  be  presented  in  various  aspects 
and  relations. 

It  needs  to  be  presented  fundamentally  as  the  laiv  of 
God,  binding  every  moral  being  in  duty  to  God  and  to 
God  alone,   and  thus  furnishing  the  only   ^  God's  Law 
basis  for  sound  morality.     Any  so-called    the  Basis  of 
morality   that    starts    from    some    other      Morality, 
foundation  is   essentially  vicious  and   worthless. 

There  are  two  essentially  different  theories  of  mo- 
rality, the  pagan  and  the  Christian.  Their  basal  dif- 
ference lies  in  the  fact  that  one  is  man-centered  and 
the  other  God-centered.  The  essence  of  the  pagan 
morality,  whether  taught  in  heathen  or  in  Christian 
countries,  is  selfishness,  and  its  results  are  inevitably 
demoralizing  and  destructive.  Christian  morality,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  God-centered.  In  the  Christian  dis- 
pensation, God  becomes  Christ  in  his  relation  to  man 
in  redemption,  and  Christ  is  the  sovereign  or  Lord  in 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  See  Matthew  xxviii.  i8.  In 
the  view  of  the  Word  of  God,  righteousness,  or  conform- 


76      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

ity  to  the  will  of  God,  or  Christ,  is  the  supreme  thing 
to  be  sought  in  human  conduct.  The  call  of  the  law, 
from  this  point  of  view,  is  a  call  to  duty  and  to  obedi- 
ence. The  proper  preaching  of  the  law  must  have 
this  fundamentally  in  view,  and  not  benevolence,  or 
philanthropy,  or  happiness.  If  this  is  left  out  of  view, 
the  preaching  of  the  law  is  vitiated  and  perverted  in 
its  whole  nature  and  effect. 

In  the  view  of  the  Word  of  God — which  is  directly 
contrary  to  the  popular  view  of  the  day — all  duty  and 
morality  turn  Godward  and  Christward,  rather  than 
manward.  Egoism  and  altruism,  as  usually  under- 
stood, are  the  one  immoral  and  the  other  non-moral. 
All  duty  is  owed  to  God  and  to  him  only.  It  may  be 
performed,  according  to  his  directions — toivard  one- 
self, in  which  case  it  is  selfial  and  moral;  toward 
one's  fellows,  in  which  case  it  is  social  and  moral;  or 
toward  God,  in  which  case  it  is  theistic  and  moral. 
If  not  done  as  to  God,  selfial  actions  become  selfish 
and  immoral;  social  actions,  altruistic  merely  and  non- 
moral;  and  all  alike  are  directed  to  selfish  or  merely 
humanitarian  ends. 

From  the  general  theistic  point  of  view,  that  alone 
is  morally  good  which  is  intentionally  conformed  to 
the  will  of  God;  from  the  specific  Christian  point  of 
view,  that  alone  is  morally  good  which  is  conformed 
to  the  will  of  Christ  the  Lord.  Failure  to  recognize 
and  to  emphasize  this  has  been  the  perverting  and 
fatal  defect  of  very  much  of  the  moral  teaching  from 
the  pulpit  and  in  the  schools,  since  Hobbes  and  the 
days  of  the  English  Restoration.  In  the  last  century, 
Paley  crystallized  the  principles  of  selfishness  for  the 
Church,  by  making  ''  virtue  "  "  consist  in  doing  the  will 
of  God  for  the  sake  of  everlasting  happiness."     Others 


THE    PREACHER  S    MESSAGE.  77 

have  followed,  who  have  taken  out  the  hypocritical 
feature  of  the  happiness  theory,  and,  in  thereby  saving 
it  from  being  immoral,  have  left  it  purely  heathen. 
Sometimes  'Uhe  dignity  of  human  nature"  has  taken 
the  place  of  the  will  of  God,  as  the  ground  of  moral 
obligation.  Sometimes  the  principle  has  appeared  as 
*nhe  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number";  some- 
times as  ''  the  greatest  good  of  the  individual  himself." 
Recently  it  has  been  exploited  as  ^^altruis?n^''  or  as  judi- 
ous  advice  to  man  to  avoid  injuring  other  people  lest 
they  should  injure  him.  And,  so  far  as  morality  so- 
called  has  been  preached  from  the  pulpit,  for  genera- 
tions it  has  largely  been  this  heathen  so-called  morality, 
which  is  in  fact  debasing  immorality. 

Twenty  years    ago  Bishop  Warren,  then  of  Boston 
University,  called  attention,  in  his  ''Introduction"  to 
the     translation    of    Wuttke's    Christian       schism  of 
Ethics^  to  the  schism  between  the  prev-      Ethics  and 
alent   dogmatics  and    ethics.      The    doc-     ^og^^atics. 
trine   he    regarded    as   substantially   and   prevailingly 
Scriptural  and  Christian;    the  morality  as  essentially 
pagan  and  self-centered. 

The  ethics  taught  in  our  schools  has  been  largely 
paganism,  and  that  not  even  baptized.  Man  is  made 
a  law  and  end  to  himself;  his  own  enjoyment,  or 
dignity,  or  culture,  or  blessedness,  is  kept  uppermost, 
has  been  kept  uppermost  for  these  generations.  And 
so  the  dogmatics  has  largely  swung  loose  from  the 
ethics  ;  the  creed  from  the  practise. 

The  legitimate  outcome  of  this  ethical  system  has 
been  manifest  in  the  exaltation  of  wealth  and  money- 
getting,  as  means  to  the  happiness  and  culture  that 
are  set  before  men  as  the  great  ends;  in  the  underes- 
timate of  manhood  and  character;    in  the  increasing 


78      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

tendency  to  ignore  God  and  think  that  **his  laws  will 
not  work";  in  the  materialization  and  brutalization  of 
humanity  and  civilization.  Hence,  the  great  problems 
of  capital  and  labor;  of  caste  and  communism;  of  the 
church-going  people  and  the  lapsed  masses;  of  public 
and  private  corruption  everywhere.  It  is  impossible 
to  overstate  the  fact,  that  a  large  portion  of  the  so- 
called  moral  teaching  is  totally  and  distinctively  pagan 
and  immoral;  and  that,  so  long  as  it  is  continued,  the 
schism  in  society  can  only  widen  and  the  yawning 
chasm  grow  deeper. 

The  new  Dornerism,  that  has  come  in  from  Ger- 
many, has  introduced  into  the  theology  certain  erro- 
neous ideas  that  have  helped  still  further  to  befog  the 
moral  teachings  and  teachers  of  this  generation.  It 
makes  the  essence  of  God,  the  supreme  thing  in  the 
divine  goodness,  to  be  *Move."  It  analyzes  **love" 
or  goodness  into  three  parts :  the  primary  and  funda- 
mental, benevolence  ;  the  second,  sympathy  ;  the 
third,  righteousness.  Now  this  is  undoubtedly  the 
natural  order  on  the  materialistic  basis  of  sensation, 
which  makes  feeling  the  supreme  thing  and  reduces 
all  feeling  to  pleasure  or  pain.  But  it  reverses  the 
order  set  by  God.  That  makes  the  fundamental  ele- 
ment in  God's  goodness  his  infinite  desire  for  the 
righteousness  and  purity,  or  moral  well-being,  of  his 
creatures,  and  not  for  their  happiness  merely.  Uncon- 
sciously the  preacher,  under  the  guidance  of  this 
false  theology,  finds  his  way  back  into  the  ethical 
fog  of  heathenism.  The  supreme  goodness  of  God 
becomes  his  supreme  regard  for  the  well-being  of  his 
creatures;  well-being  becomes  co7?ifortable-being;  and 
God's  supreme  goodness  becomes  his  benevolence  to 
his  creatures,  and  is  manifested  in  supreme  regard  for 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  79 

their  happiness.  As  an  ethical  basis,  this  naturally 
prepares  the  way  for  and  leads  to  post-mortem  proba- 
tion, semi-universalism,  and  universalism,  in  theology. 
It  deftly  puts  man  in  the  place  of  God  as  the  center, 
by  making  man's  comfort  the  supreme  thing  ;  and  so, 
after  having  appeared  to  thrust  pagan  ethics  out  of  the 
front  door,  in  the  name  of  Christ  and  righteousness, 
it  brings  them  in  at  the  back  door,  in  the  name  of 
humanity  and  happiness.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the 
well-being  becomes  the  right-beings  then  the  supreme 
goodness  of  God  becomes  his  righteousness  and  holi- 
ness, and  is  manifested  in  his  supreme  regard  for  the 
perfection  and  righteousness  of  his  creatures.  As  the 
true  ethical  basis,  this  last  necessarily  excludes  all  the 
previously  mentioned  errors.  Is  God  first  benevolent, 
and  then  subordinately  righteous?  Or  is  the  reverse 
the  case  ?  Is  God  first  a  father,  and  then  subordi- 
nately a  moral  governor  and  law-giver?  Or  is  the 
reverse  the  case  ?     These  are  test  questions. 

All  this  false  theorizing  is  in  the  face  of  the  fact 
that  the  law  of  the  universe  is  a  law  of  righteousness 
primarily,  and  of  happiness  only  secondarily;  as  well 
as  of  the  fact  that  conscience  never  fails  to  exalt  the 
right  to  the  place  of  supremacy  over  \\i^  pleasurable. 

On  the  basis  of  such  false  theologizing,  eudemonism 
is  the  only  ethical  theory  logically  possible,  and  uni- 
versalism the  only  ultimate  orthodoxy  xhe  Moral 
possible.  The  natural  outcome  from  Results, 
teaching  such  so-called  morality  is  immorality  on  the 
broadest  possible  scale,  and  the  perversion  of  all  human 
and  Christian  relations.  The  universal  corruption 
prevalent  in  this  nation  to-day,  and  reaching  every 
phase  of  life,  and  every  position  from  the  lowest  to 
the  highest,  is  the  natural  and   inevitable  product  of 


8o       Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

such  teaching  and  preaching.  The  only  remedy  is  to 
be  found  in  the  call,  "  Back  to  the  /aw/'  as  the  /aw  of 
God — not  as  the  battle-cry  of  reform  merely,  but  as  a 
call  to  duty,  repentance,  and  salvation. 

The  preacher,  if  his  preaching  is  to  meet  the  needs 
of  the  times,  must  urge  the  requirements  of  the  law 
Preaching  "P°^  ^^^^  individual,  calling  for  diligent 
the  Law  to  and  earnest  self-conservation,  self-cul- 
Smners.  ture,  and  self-conduct,  and  all  these  as 
the  requirements  of  God.  He  must  thus  convince 
the  man  that  he  is  not  at  liberty,  as  the  common  notion 
has  it,  to  use  or  abuse  himself  or  his  powers  and  pos- 
sessions as  he  pleases;  but  that  he  has  a  right  to  do 
as  he  pleases  only  so  far  as  it  pleases  him  to  do  right, 
that  is,  so  far  as  it  pleases  him  to  conform  to  God's 
requirements.  He  must  show  him  as  well  that  he  is 
under  the  same  law  with  reference  to  his  fellow-men 
in  society.  He  is  not  great,  nor  rich,  nor  strong,  for 
himself  alone.  The  poor,  the  ignorant,  the  low,  are 
not  stepping-stones,  nor  lawful  plunder;  they  are 
brothers  to  be  respected  and  helped.  His  power  and 
position  are  to  be  used  for  the  elevation  of  those  below 
him,  and  his  obligation  in  this  direction  is  limited  only 
by  the  extent  of  his  power  and  opportunity.  Paul 
wrote  :  ''I  am  debtor  both  to  the  Greeks  and  to  the 
barbarians,  both  to  the  wise  and  to  the  unwise."  That 
is  the  law  of  the  Christian  life.  The  duties  of  social 
conservation,  social  improvement,  and  social  direc- 
tion, are  to  be  pressed  upon  men  as  the  requirements 
of  God.  With  equal  emphasis  must  man's  theistic 
duties  also  be  urged  upon  his  attention  and  his  con- 
science. His  duty  to  study  God's  manifestation  of 
himself  in  the  system  of  .nature,  in  the  human  system, 
and  especially  in  the  system  of  divine  revelation  ;   his 


THE    preacher's    MESSAGE.  8l 

duty  of  supreme  devotion  of  the  intellect,  heart,  and 
will  to  God  ;  the  duties  of  obedience  and  worship  and 
service — all  these  must  be  enforced  as  the  requirements 
of  God.  In  no  other  way  can  the  sinner  be  made  to 
feel  his  need  of  salvation  because  of  his  utter,  ignomini- 
ous, and  wicked  failure  to  keep  the  law  of  God,  and  to 
fulfil  the  divine  requirements  resting  upon  him  in  the 
conduct  of  life  in  all  its  relations. 

In  the  preaching  that  makes  for  righteousness,  the 
law  needs  to  be  presented  as  God's  law  for  all  organiza- 
tions and   associations    of    men — in   the  „  „,    x        * 

2.  The  Law  of 

family,  community,  and  state;   in  Indus-        Human 
trial,  commercial,  and  civic  pursuits.     It       Societies, 
needs  to  be  made  eminently  clear  that  there  can  be  no 
relation,  no  association,  no  corporation  that  is  not  sub- 
ject to  it. 

Men  have  largely  been  accustomed  to  separate  their 
social  and  business  relations  from  what  they  consider 
their  moral  and  religious  relations.  It  has  been  a 
common  saying  that  corporations  have  no  conscience. 
The  natural  and  inevitable  result  of  such  a  theory, 
constantly  reiterated,  is  infidelity  and  corruption  in 
all  these  social  and  business  relations.  To  be  made 
aware  of  the  real  condition  of  things,  one  needs  but  to 
run  the  eye  over  the  issues  of  the  daily  press  of  some 
metropolitan  city,  as  New  York  or  Chicago,  and  note 
the  long  list  of  marital  and  domestic  infidelities,  infelic- 
ities, and  scandals  ;  the  startling  record  of  peculation 
and  speculation  and  defalcation,  of  extortion  by  trusts 
and  monopolies  and  syndicates,  of  legislative  and 
Congressional  bribery  and  corruption,  of  quarrels  and 
rows  and  murders;  lists  and  records  extended  enough 
on  any  day  of  the  week,  and  especially  on  the  Sabbath, 
to  fill  any  soul  with  horror. 


82      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

It  is  high  time  for  the  preacher  to  call  a  halt  in  this 
mad  career  of  lawlessness.  It  is  high  time  for  him  to 
insist  that  Christian  morality  binds  all  human  societies 
and  corporations,  in  their  dealings  with  mankind,  by 
the  same  principles  that  it  lays  upon  the  individual  in 
his  social  duties;  that  there  is  required  of  them  the 
same  strict  regard  for  the  rights  of  man  to  life,  liberty, 
property,  truthfulness,  and  the  offices  of  human  broth- 
erhood that  binds  the  individual  man  in  his  conduct, 
and  that  all  this  is  the  requirement  of  God.  Genuine 
social  and  political  reform  can  be  reached  in  no  other 
way  than  by  bringing  men  up  to  these  requirements  of 
God,  and  making  them  understand  that  they  are 
requirements  of  God,  not  to  be  escaped  by  shrewdness 
and  not  to  be  neglected  with  impunity. 

Problems  of  Society. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  preacher  comes  into  con- 
nection with  the  great  industrial,  social,  and  civil 
problems  that  are  so  prominently  before  the  public 
mind,  and  is  called  upon  to  mark  out  his  course  in 
dealing  with  these  problems.  There  are  certain  things 
to  which  he  will  do  well  to  attend. 

His  message  will   need  to  guard  against  the  new 

positivist  sociology  that  has  arisen  out  of  the  atomism 

(1)  To  Guard    and  materialism  of  the  age,  and  that  is 

PosS     t      everywhere  exerting  its  demoralizing  in- 

Sociology.      fluence    upon    public   opinion    and   law. 

The  materialistic  method,  in  excluding  all  rational  and 

moral  facts,  principles,  and  considerations,  leaves  out 

everything  that  is  of  any  real  importance  and  scientific 

value  in  social  science,  and  shuts  out  all  possibility  of 

human  improvement  on  such  a  basis.     Its  affirmation 


THE    preacher's   MESSAGE.  83 

of  the  absolute  heredity  of  crime;  its  denial  of  free 
will  and,  consequently,  of  human  responsibility;  its 
assertion  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  absolute  crime, 
the  so-called  crimes  being  merely  infractions  of  social 
rules  made  for  convenience  or  self-preservation  in 
certain  conditions  of  society,  and  changing  with  those 
conditions,  so  that  even  chastity  may  be  '*an  artificial 
and  conventional  virtue";  its  regarding  of  crime  as  a 
matter  of  condition  and  environment  rather  than  of 
character — and  the  embodiment  of  all  in  a  positivist 
criminology  by  Lombroso  and  his  school — all  this  is 
one  of  the  threatening  phenomena  of  the  day.  The 
elaborate  fooling  indulged  in  by  the  disciples  of  these 
men,  in  detecting  and  classifying  criminals  by  physical 
marks  rather  than  moral,  and  in  presenting  ''surer 
methods  of  detecting  the  criminal  by  the  observation 
of  tattooing,  anthropometry,  physiognomy,  the  physio- 
psychic  conditions,  the  data  as  to  sensitiveness,  reflex 
activity,  vaso-motor  reactions,  the  extent  of  the  field 
of  vision,"  etc.;  their  settled  purpose  of  reconstruct- 
ing on  this  basis  the  whole  theory  of  crime  and  pun- 
ishment and  the  system  of  law  applicable  to  them; 
and  the  palming  off  of  all  this  as  ''the  latest  science" 
— would  be  simply  laughable  were  it  not  that,  with 
materialism  in  the  air,  it  is  ominously  threatening  and 
terribly  demoralizing. 

Yet  the  professedly  positivist  sociology  is  not  the 
form  that  is  most  dangerous  to  the  preacher.  There 
is  a  vast  amount  of  talking  and  teaching  and  writing 
on  this  subject  that  professes  to  be  Christian,  but  is, 
nevertheless,  thoroughly  vicious,  either  sociological 
from  its  latent  materialism  or  from  its  Fallacies, 
utter  shallowness,  or  from  its  tendency  to  turn  the 
minds  of  Christians  away  from  the  Gospel,   with  its 


84       Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

regenerating  power,  to  the  worthless  projects  of  the 
faddists. 

Such  so-called  sociology  attempts  to  apply  the 
methods  of  physical  science  to  what  is  pre-eminently 
non-physical  in  all  its  most  important  factors.  It  prac- 
tically ignores  those  important  factors.  It  assumes 
that  society  is  an  organising  when,  as  matter  of  fact,  it 
is  only  remotely  analogous  to  an  organism.  It  has 
no  vital  arrangement  of  organized  parts,  and  there  is 
no  single  structural  principle  of  life  evolving  all  social 
results.  It  is  biological  only  in  a  loose  and  analogical 
sense. 

It  assumes  the  identity  of  social  evolution  and  social 
progress — whereas  the  former  is  only  *'a  reasonable 
sequence  of  the  unintended  " ;  the  latter  undoubtedly 
"a  reasonable  sequence  of  the  intended."*  In  the 
former  blind  forces,  under  necessary  law,  unfold  along 
inevitable  lines  toward  unavoidable  results;  in  the 
latter,  will,  mind,  man,  great  men,  Divine  Providence, 
all  enter  in  as  the  essential  and  controlling  factors  in 
a  movement  that  has  merely  a  physical  basis.  Social 
progress  comes  from  these  elements,  and  Christianity 
recognizes  as  fundamental  the  truth  that  God  is  not 
only  the  author  of  all  social  laws,  but  that  he  also 
superintends  their  operation. 

The  general  introduction  of  the  preaching  of  soci- 
ology in  the  place  of  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel, 
would  thus,  at  its  best,  be  the  substitution  01  positive 

*  An  exceedingly  able  and  helpful  exposure  of  this  and  many  other 
current  sociological  fallacies  and  unverifiable  assumptions  may  be 
found  in  a  series  of  articles  on  "  Physics  and  Sociology,"  by  Mr.  W. 
H.  Mallock,  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  running  through  the 
numbers  for  December,  1895,  and  January  and  February,  1896,  and 
yet  unfinished. 


THE    preacher's   MESSAGE.  85 

and  fatal  error  for  saving  truth.  What  it  would  be 
at  its  worst  will  appear  when  we  consider  that  Christ's 
method — already  shown  to  be  the  only  effective  method 
of  lifting  up  society — accomplishes  its  work  by  infusing 
into  the  structure  and  texture  of  society  the  regenera- 
tive and  formative  ideas  of  the  Gospel  of  salvation, 
and  that  anything  short  of  this  unity  centering  in 
Christ  and  salvation  would  hopelessly  confuse  and 
distract  not  only  the  hearers,  but  the  preachers  also. 
Christ's  own  direction  has  the  basal  wisdom  in  it  for 
preacher  as  well  as  hearer:  * 

"  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,  and  all 
these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you." 

The  Apostle  Paul's  direction  to  the  Corinthian 
Christians  presents  the  same  principle  of  unity  from 
another  point  of  view  :  f 

'*  But  covet  earnestly  the  best  gifts,  and  yet  show  I  unto  you  a 
more  excellent  way.  Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and 
of  angels,  and  have  not  charity,  I  am  become  as  sounding  brass,  or  a 
tinkling  cymbal." 

It  is  commendable  to  covet  earnestly  the  best 
spiritual  gifts  and  to  cultivate  assiduously  the  increased 
breadth;  but  the  most  notable  gifts  and  the  greatest 
breadth,  leading  to  the  highest  achievements  in  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  are  to  be  attained  only  through 
becoming  saturated  and  possessed  with  the  overwhelm- 
ing and  all-pervading  power  of  Christian  love,  working 
in  and  out  from  a  divinely  renewed  soul.  While,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  turning  of  the  human  mind  and  effort 
to  many  things  unessential,  even  tho  important,  dis- 
sipates the  energies  and  prevents  the  accomplishment 

*Matt.  vi.  32.  f  I  Cor.  xii.  31  ;  xiii.  I. 


86      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

of  anything  worth  while  in  any  direction  ;  absolute 
concentration,  on  the  other  hand,  on  the  great  ger- 
minal principle  of  Christianity,  leads  to  limitless  devel- 
opment and  accomplishment  along  all  important  and 
essential  lines  of  endeavor. 

It  will  readily  become  apparent,  therefore,  to  any 
thoughtful  student  of  theology  and  the  social  sciences, 
that  of  the  thousand  and  one  proposals  of  the  secu- 
larized sociologists  very  many  are  likely  to  prove  both 
unscientific  and  unpractical. 

But  it  will  not  be  enough  to  scout  all  this  as  unscien- 
tific, even  tho  it  be  so  to  the  last  degree,  or  even 
to  demonstrate  it  to  be  unscientific.  The  preacher 
must  find  the  message  of  the  law  of  God  in  the  Bible 
with  which  to  meet  it.  He  needs  to  enforce  with 
renewed  distinctness  and  emphasis  the  teachings  of 
that  Bible  concerning  man's  spiritual  nature  and  his 
freedom  and  responsibility;  the  sacredness  and  abso- 
lute character  of  right  and  virtue,  and  the  inherently 
despicable  character  of  wrong  and  crime;  the  depend- 
ence of  character  upon  the  man  himself  rather  than 
upon  his  environment — of  all  of  which,  with  all  the 
kindred  and  related  principles,  innumerable  illustra- 
tions will  be  found  in  the  preacher's  text-book,  the 
Word  of  God.  If  the  moral  atmosphere  that  is  so  hazy 
with  secularism  and  animalism  is  to  be  cleared;  if  the 
mad,  unprecedented  rush  of  vice  and  crime  that  to-day 
dazes  Christendom  is  to  be  stayed;  and  if  the  mawkish 
sentimentality  in  dealing  with  crimes  and  criminals — 
that  has  reached  such  a  pass  that,  as  Dr.  Andrew  D. 
White  says,  **the  only  taking  of  life  that  Americans 
object  to  seems  to  be  that  which  is  done  by  judicial 
process" — is  to  be  swept  out  of  existence,  these  Scrip- 
tural principles  will  need  to  be  persistently  presented 


THE    preacher's    MESSAGE.  87 

and  enforced  after  Christ's  method  of  enforcing  prin- 
ciples, until  something  of  the  old  moral  foundation 
is  restored,  through  the  quickening  of  conscience  and 
the  enlightening  power  of  Divine  truth. 

The  preacher  will  also  need  to  understand  the  situa- 
tion   of    the    English-speaking,    or    per-    ^^^  to  Under- 
haps  Teutonic,  races,  and    their  special       stand  the 
relation    to    the    problems   of   the    age,       Situation, 
and    to    shape   and    direct   his    message   accordingly. 

The  fact  of  the  giving  of  the  wealth  and  commerce 
of  the  world,  and  the  power  of  machine  production, 
into  the  hands  of  Protestant  Christendom,  as  repre- 
sented by  the  Teutonic  peoples,  and  especially  by 
those  of  Anglo-Saxon  descent,  carries  with  it  a  vast 
meaning  that  has  probably  attracted  the  attention  of 
few  persons.  Cunningham  in  Politics  and  Econojtiics^ 
a  book  of  rare  insight  and  breadth,  has  given  a  glimpse 
of  its  meaning  in  connection  with  Great  Britain.  He 
says : * 

"  Each  great  race  has  made  a  notable  contribution  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  civilization  of  the  world  ;  we  owe  a  debt  to  Egypt  for 
some  measure  of  skill,  to  Greece  for  the  triumph  of  art,  to  Rome  for 
the  vigor  of  her  law.  We  English,  too,  have  a  destiny  to  fulfil, 
a  duty  thrust  upon  us  by  him  whom  we  profess  to  serve,  a  heri- 
tage to  bequeath  to  all  future  generations  and  all  other  races. 
We  are  a  nation  of  shopkeepers  ;  a  nation  whose  triumphs  and 
whose  position  are  inextricably  bound  up  with  commercial  suc- 
cess. And  therefore  it  is  that  the  problems  of  industrial  and  social 
life  lie  before  us  for  solution  ;  that  it  is  in  our  progress  and  our  pov- 
erty, our  bitter  misery  and  our  struggle  with  it,  that  the  world  may 
learn  about  the  evils  of  grinding  competition  and  pitiable  luxury,  of 

*  Politics  and  Economics y  p.  275,  by  W.  Cunningham,  B.  D.,  Lec- 
turer and  Chaplain  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  London  :  Kegan 
Paul,  Trench  &  Co.,  1885. 


88         CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

the  race  for  wealth  and  failure  to  enjoy  it.  These  are  the  questions 
with  which  the  Sphinx  has  set  us  face  to  face,  and  by  our  answers  to 
these  will  our  place  as  a  nation  be  judged  in  the  ages  to  come." 

In  order  to  get  a  full  conception  of  the  meaning  of 
the  fact  thus  presented,   the  view  and  scope  of  Mr. 

The  Anglo-  Cunningham  must  be  somewhat  widened, 
Saxon  Problem,  and  some  new  factors  in  the  problem 
must  be  taken  in.  To  begin  with,  ''the  Anglo-Saxon 
peoples"  needs  to  be  substituted  for  ''we  English." 
Possibly  an  extension  may  soon  be  needed,  as  already 
suggested,  to  take  in  the  Teutonic  peoples;  but  for  the 
present  the  Anglo-Saxons  hold  the  place  of  supremacy. 
The  capital  factors  to  be  taken  in,  as  furnishing  the 
principles  and  standard  of  judgment  and  adjustment, 
are  the  open  Bible  and  free  democratic  institutions. 
With  this  new  breadth  and  light  the  special  mission  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples,  of  which  we  form  a  very 
large  element,  is  to  solve  for  mankind  the  problems 
of  industrial,  social,  and  civil  life,  by  the  aid  of  Bible 
Christianity  and  under  free  democratic  political  insti- 
tutions. The  things  of  special  account  are  essential 
manhood  and  free  development  under  the  sway  of 
Bible  principles.  The  precepts  of  the  Divine  Word 
must  therefore  furnish  the  standard  of  manhood  and 
Christian  character,  and  the  rule  for  the  direction  of 
development  and  progress. 

These  considerations  open  the  way  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  preacher's  message  to  men  regarding 
present  and  pressing  problems.  They  make  it  plain 
that  manhood  and  character  are  the  things  to  be 
sought  and  regarded  supremely  in  this  world.  Not 
wealth,  not  commerce,  not  material  progress,  not  the 
State,  but  man  with  his  immortal  nature,  and  charac- 
ter that  is  to  remain  his  only  permanent  belonging, 


THE    preacher's    MESSAGE.  89 

are  the  supreme  things  from  the  Bible  point  of  view. 
The  moral  and  Christian  precepts  laid  down  by  God 
and  Christ  are  the  governing  principles,  equally  appli- 
cable to  all  spheres  and  all  problems.  The  preacher 
to  the  English- speaking  peoples  is  therefore  peculiarly 
bound  to  unfold  and   enforce   these  in  his   message. 

He  is  to  present  the  moral  law  as  supreme  over  all 
questions  of  society,  and  social  position  and  relation. 
High  manhood  and  womanhood,  charac-  Moral  Law 
ter,  attainment,  and  achievement  in  ser-  over  Society, 
vice  and  self-sacrifice,  are  to  be  impressed,  by  Scrip- 
tural precept  and  illustration,  as  the  only  titles  of 
nobility  and  aristocracy  in  the  Kingdom  of  God.  In 
the  precepts  of  the  Divine  Word  he  is  to  supply  the  test 
and  touchstone  of  all  social  usages,  amusements,  en- 
tertainments, and  the  like;  ruling  out  thereby  all  that 
is  detrimental  to  true  manhood  and  womanhood,  and 
to  the  interests  of  humanity,  and  seeking  to  mold 
everything  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  Christ  and 
his  religion. 

He  is  to  find  in  the  Divine  law  the  supreme  rule 
of  economics,  applicable  to  all  industrial  questions, 
whether  concerning  supply  or  demand,  Moral  Law 
labor  or  capital,  employee  or  employer,  over  Economics. 
He  will  need  to  make  deadly  onset  with  ''the  sword 
of  the  Spirit"  upon  the  ''age-temptation,"  and  make 
it  full  clear  that  wealth  is  not  an  adequate  suminum 
bonum  for  man  or  for  society.  He  will  need  to  ponder 
well  the  real  condition  of  things,  until  he  understands 
and  appreciates  the  exact  dangers  that  just  now 
threaten  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples,  from  their  long- 
continued  defiance  of  the  righteous  law  of  the  universe. 
Mr.  W.  S.  Lilly,  one  of  the  ablest  of  British  writers, 
has  uttered  a  note  of  warning  that  may  give  a  hint 


9©      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

of  the  foreboding  of  one  clear  thinker  and  seer.     He 
says  :  * 

"  The  law  of  the  world — whether  stated  in  theological  phraseology 
or  not — is  justice  :  yes,  retributive  justice.  It  rules  absolutely 
throughout  the  universe,  in  every  sphere  of  action  of  all  intelligent 
being.  Fraud  upon  workers,  fraud  upon  buyers,  must,  by  the  very 
nature  of  things,  entail  the  destruction  of  any  society  which  tolerates 
it  :  nay,  which  blesses  and  approves  it  with  the  names  of  competi- 
tion, supply  and  demand,  the  Course  of  Trade.  Who,  that  has  eyes 
to  see,  can  fail  to  discern  even  now  the  handwriting  upon  the  wall — 
the  Mene,  Tekel,  Upharsin  of  this  great  Babylon  which  we  have 
built?  Socialism,  Communism,  Nihilism — think  you  they  portend 
nothing  ?  Do  not  think  it.  These  should  need  no  Daniel  to  expound 
them.  Their  interpretation  is  plain  enough.  Different  expressions 
of  one  and  the  same  movement,  they  mean  '  red  ruin  and  the  break- 
ing up  of  laws' for  a  society  which  has  enthroned  Mammon  as  the 
supreme  object  of  human  affection  and  worship  ;  which  sets  up,  as  the 
all-sufficient  rule  of  life,  the  principle  of  self-interest ;  which  accounts 
of  man  as  a  mere  wealth-producing  animal.  They  mean  the  negation 
of  country,  of  history,  of  liberty,  of  property ;  the  destruction  of  all 
that  constitutes  civilization  in  the  highest  sense." 

In  escaping  such  fate,  the  preacher  will  find  no  help 
in  the  materialistic  platitudes  and  mummeries  of  the 
Spencerian  social  science,  or  in  the  inane  mutterings 
and  babblings  of  a  positivist  sociology.  He  will  need 
to  resort  for  such  help  to  the  Word  of  God;  to  bring 
from  that  the  simple  principles  that  fell  with  the 
weight  of  omnipotence  from  the  inspired  lips  of  Moses 
and  Paul  and  John,  and  from  the  divine  lips  of  Christ; 
and  to  present  these  to  men  for  their  guidance,  and 
to  be  applied  by  them  with  the  united  wisdom  of  the 
Church  of  Christ,  and  the  higher  and  silent  wisdom  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  to  the  solution  of  the  intricate  and 
perplexing  problems  now  demanding  attention. 

"^  On  Shibboleths,  pp.  212,  213. 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  9I 

He  is  to  find  in  the  same  law  the  supreme  rule  in  pol- 
itics and  statesmanship,  and  to  unfold  and  enforce  its 
principles  in  all  the  civil  and  civic  rela-  Moral  Law 
tions.  In  this  way  alone  is  the  remedy  over  Politics, 
to  be  found  for  the  slavery  that  has  come  from  the 
brutal  despot  upon  a  throne  in  the  Old  World,  and  for 
the  slavery  and  bottomless  political  corruption  com- 
bined that  have  come  from  the  **  brutal  individualism" 
of  the  **  sovereign  people  "  in  the  New  World.  Neces- 
sity will  be  on  him  to  hold  up  the  divine  standard, 
with  absolute  clearness  and  distinctness,  until  every 
citizen  shall  feel  the  weight  of  obligation  resting  upon 
citizenship  and  hasten  to  the  performance  of  his 
duties,  in  the  primary,  in  the  political  meeting,  at  the 
polls,  in  public  office  and  trust,  in  short,  in  all  his 
civil  relations;  until  every  citizen  shall  understand 
that  he  is  individually  responsible,  and  accept  the 
responsibility,  for  the  character  of  politics  and  of  the 
legislators,  and  of  public  officers  and  rulers;  and  until 
every  office-seeker  shall  be  made  to  understand  that,  as 
**  public  office  is  a  public  trust, "  it  should  never  be  com- 
mitted to  a  rake  or  to  a  drunkard,  to  a  mere  politician  or 
to  a  sheer  scoundrel,  whether  that  one  is  an  impecunious 
lawyer,  a  fat  saloon-keeper,  or  a  multi-millionaire. 

As  regards  the  state  of  things  that  needs  to  be  rem- 
edied in  our  own  country,  and  that  has  been  so  empha- 
sized by  the  recent  Lexow  investigations  in  New  York 
City,  and  the  subsequent  political  developments,  it  may 
be  well  to  look  upon  American  politics  through  the  eyes 
of  the  same  foreigner  just  quoted.     Mr.  Lilly  says:  * 

••  In  what  I  am  writing,  I  know  that  I  am  but  expressing  the  views 
of  the  most  highly  educated  and  thoughtful  among  the  inhabitants  of 

*  On  Shibboleths,  p.  93. 


92      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

the  United  States,  who,  undazzled  by  the  immense  industries,  the 
colossal  capitalism,  the  magnificent  material  progress  of  their  Repub- 
lic, perceive  clearly  the  rottenness  of  the  foundations  whereon  it 
rests,  but  who  dare  not  give  utterance  to  their  thoughts.  '  America,' 
wrote  Heine,  *  that  frightful  dungeon  of  freedom,  where  the  invisible 
chains  gall  still  more  painfully  than  the  visible  ones  at  home,  and 
where  the  most  repulsive  of  all  tyrants,  the  mob,  exercises  its  coarse 
despotism.' " 

So  desperate  a  case  as  that  which  confronts  him,  the 
messenger  of  God  will  never  reach  by  any  advocacy  of 
mere  reform  measures.  He  will  need  to  summon  men 
to  the  judgment  of  the  law  and  the  testimony,  and  then 
to  urge  evermore  Christianity  as  a  divine  saving  power, 
as  did  the  prophet  Isaiah  of  old,  in  a  similar  crisis:  * 

"  Therefore,  thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  Behold,  I  lay  in  Zion  for  a 
foundation  stone,  a  tried  stone,  a  precious  corner-stone,  a  sure  foun- 
dation ;  he  that  believeth  shall  not  make  haste.  Judgment  also 
will  I  lay  to  the  line,  and  righteousness  to  the  plummet,  and  the  hail 
shall  sweep  away  the  refuge  of  lies,  and  the  waters  shall  overflow  the 
hiding-place.  And  your  covenant  with  death  shall  be  disannulled, 
and  your  agreement  with  hell  shall  not  stand  ;  when  the  overflowing 
scourge  shall  pass  through,  then  ye  shall  be  trodden  down  by  it." 

In  fine,  the  preacher's  message  is  to  bear  from  the 
Word  of  God  the  appropriate  moral   principles   that 
The  ^^^  ^o  be  applied  by  the  Church  to  the 

Preacher's  Duty,  complicated  problem  that  has  been  com- 
mitted to  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples  for  solution,  and 
that  is  clearly  insoluble  except  by  the  application  of 
Christianity  as  a  divine  law  and  a  regenerating  power. 
The  other  phases  of  his  message  will  aid  him  in  this 
task;  for  if  he  succeeds  in  impressing  upon  the  Church 
her  duty  in  the  immediate  evangelization  of  the  world; 
in   bringing   her   to  right   views  regarding   this   vast 

*  Isaiah  XX viii.  16-18. 


THE   preacher's   MESSAGE.  93 

wealth  in  her  possession  as  given  for  this  end;  and  in 
leading  her  to  consecrate  her  sons  and  daughters,  her 
untold  treasures  of  silver  and  gold,  and  her  almost 
limitless  energies  and  administrative  power,  to  the  im- 
mediate carrying  out  of  the  Great  Commission  as  her 
one  duty — the  world  will  be  speedily  revolutionized, 
since  the  causes  of  the  industrial,  social,  and  political 
evil  and  corruption — human  greed  and  ambition — will 
be  swept  away  by  the  new  spiritual  power,  or  swallowed 
up  in  grander  hopes  and  enterprises  for  the  glory  of 
Christ  in  the  salvation  of  the  world. 

The  preacher  needs  also  to  present  God's  law,  in 
a  wise    and    discriminating    manner,  as  3.  The  Way  of 
the   law   of  life   for  man,   marking   out  I-ife. 

God's  way  of  blessedness  through  obedience. 

Quite  different  should  such  preaching  be  from  that 
so  common  in  some  quarters,  which  indiscriminately 
presents  the  law  of  God  as  if  it  were  simply  the  divine 
benevolence  toward  the  sinner;  and  which  encourages 
transgressors  by  minimizing  or  taking  out  of  it  the 
divine  justice,  which  is  its  essential  characteristic,  and 
so  lifting  from  man  the  obligation  to  that  righteous- 
ness in  the  securing  of  which  in  some  way  is  his  only 
safety.  The  Lord  said,  through  Moses,  to  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  of  old,  as  recorded  in  Deuteronomy: 
''All  these  things  have  I  commanded  you  for  your 
good  always."  That  expresses  an  important  truth. 
The  law  is  the  perfect  statement  by  God,  of  man's  way 
of  maintaining  righteousness,  and  securing  perfection 
and  blessedness,  provided  he  is  not  already  a  law- 
breaker and  subject  to  the  penalty  of  the  broken  law. 
But  from  the  moment  he  becomes  a  sinner,  the  law 
has  henceforth  only  wrath,  condemnation,  terror,  and 
destruction. 


94      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

In  presenting  the  law  as  the  law  of  life,  the 
preacher  needs  to  guard  against  the  common  senti- 
mentality, the  subtle  universalism,  and  the  false  benev- 
olence of  the  day;  and  at  the  same  time  to  vindicate 
the  divine  goodness  in  connection  with  the  divine 
justice.  He  should  utter  his  call  to  men  for  loving 
submission  to,  and  acquiescence  in,  this  law  of  God, 
that  is  not  made  a  barrier  and  penalty  and  curse  to 
the  righteous,  but  a  good  and  a  blessing;  and  that 
becomes  a  curse  only  through  the  perverse  wicked- 
ness of  man  himself. 

Especially  must  the  preacher  present  the  law  of  God 
as  the  law  of  judgment,  by  which  the  natural  man  is 
4.  The  Standard  to   be  judged  here,  and  by  which,  if  he 

of  Judgment,  remain  impenitent,  he  must  stand  or  fall 
at  the  bar  of  the  final  judgment. 

It  is  in  the  presentation  of  this  aspect  of  the  law 
that  much  of  the  preaching  of  the  present  day  is  con- 
fessedly and  peculiarly  deficient.  Apparently,  men 
have  almost  ceased  to  think  of  the  law  of  God  as  the 
standard  of  judgment  for  their  conduct;  and  have 
almost  forgotten  that  there  is  a  judgment  to  come. 
They  do  not  willingly  listen  to  the  preaching  that  hales 
them  to  the  judgment  bar.  Preachers  preach  such 
preaching  hesitatingly,  if  at  all.  In  many  so-called 
revivals,  the  old  stress  of  a  conscience  roused  by  the 
appeal  to  the  teachings  of  God's  Word  concerning  the 
judgment,  is  no  longer  deemed  a  proper  way  of  leading 
men  to  repent  and  accept  the  Gospel;  hence,  the  de- 
mand for  the  introduction  of  some  outside  influence, 
or  the  bringing  to  bear  of  some  new  method,  so  as  to 
accomplish  by  means  of  machinery  what  the  message 
of  the  preacher  and  the  Spirit  of  God  should  bring 
about. 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  95 

There  is  pressing  necessity  for  a  return  to  the  old 
and  authoritative  preaching  of  the  law  of  God  as  the 

Condemning  ^^.w  of  judgment.  Some  years  since,  in 
Power  of  Law.  such  a  revival,  in  view  of  the  hesitancy 
of  some  of  the  principal  members  of  the  community 
openly  to  accept  Christ  and  his  Gospel,  the  writer 
suggested  to  one  of  his  young  men  that  they  needed 
to  have  the  influence  of  the  law  brought  to  bear.  The 
law  presented  brought  the  desired  results.  Years 
afterward  that  young  man,  now  a  prominent  clergy- 
man in  one  of  our  large  cities,  accompanied  his  pastor 
to  assist  him  in  a  series  of  revival  meetings  in  a 
neighboring  town.  There  was  much  seriousness  and 
solemnity  in  the  audience,  but  for  several  days  meager 
practical  results  were  obtained.  Half  a  score  of  the 
leading  business  and  professional  men  of  the  town 
were  regularly  present,  and  undoubtedly  very  seriously 
affected,  but  they  held  out  against  the  persuasions  of 
the  Gospel,  and  their  influence  kept  others  from  sal- 
vation. After  one  of  the  evening  services,  the  two, 
pastor  and  assistant,  were  consulting  together  over 
what  seemed  to  be  the  almost  hopeless  outlook.  The 
young  man  recalled  just  then  the  incident  of  former 
years,  and  suggested  :  '*  My  old  professor  would  say 
now,  as  he  said  then,  '  Try  the  law. '  "  They  determined 
to  do  this.  The  preacher,  who  was  possessed  of  a 
remarkable  memory,  had  by  him  the  sermons  of  Jona- 
than Edwards.  He  read  and  reread  and  saturated  his 
mind  with  the  sermon  entitled,  **  Sinners  in  the  Hands 
of  an  Angry  God."  The  next  evening  he  gave  the 
audience  the  substance  of  it.  The  result  was  the  im- 
mediate submission  and  profession  of  all  those  leaders 
in  the  community,  and  a  complete  and  extended  work 
of  grace  in  that  town. 


g6       Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

The  same  subtle  pride  and  infidelity,  the  same 
supercilious  disregard  of  God's  law  of  judgment,  that 
characterized  the  age  of  Edwards,  are  prevalent  in  this 
age;  and,  if  the  Gospel  is  to  do  its  full  work  now, 
there  is  again  needed  something  of  the  old-fashioned 
preaching  that  made  men  mad  and  roused  conscience 
and  brought  the  sinner  trembling  before  the  bar  of 
God. 

Repentance  in  view  of  the  coming  judgment  is  one 
of  the  essentials  in  all  preaching  that  is  to  lead  souls 
Law  and  Repent- ^o  Christ.     We  have  almost  lost  it  out  of 

ance Vital,  our  teachings  and  of  our  thought;  but 
note  the  stress  laid  upon  it  in  the  confessions  of  the 
Church,  and  its  prominence  in  the  preparatory  preach- 
ing of  John  the  Baptist,  in  Christ's  own  early  teach- 
ings, and  in  the  view  of  the  Apostles.  Salvation  is 
salvation y"/-^/;/  sin.  It  can  not  be  had  without  turning 
fro?n  sin.  In  other  words  there  can  be  no  such  thing 
as  salvation  in  sin,  that  is,  without  repentance.  The 
Bible  as  law  addresses  sinners  as  rebels  against  God, 
and  calls  upon  them  to  throw  down  the  weapons  of 
their  rebellion.  It  was  in  his  taking  up  of  this  Bible 
call  to  submission  and  repentance  that  largely  lay  the 
power  of  Finney's  revival  preaching,  that  had  such 
efficiency  in  bringing  strong  men  to  humble  themselves 
before  God;  in  some  cases,  as  in  the  city  of  Rochester, 
completely  transforming  the  professions,  by  reaching 
doctors  and  lawyers  and  judges  alike.  Upon  this 
necessity  for  repentance  that  great  theologian,  Dr. 
Henry  B.  Smith,  was  accustomed  to  lay  special  stress; 
and  in  connection  with  it  he  so  strongly  insisted  upon 
holding  up  the  divine  side  of  this  great  matter,  rather 
than  the  merely  moral,  human  side  in  preaching;  the 
call  to  the  sinner  being:   **  Repent;  submit   to   God; 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  97 

yield  to  your  rightful  sovereign,"  not,  ''Come,  save 
yourself  from  the  consequences  of  sin." 

The  preacher's  call  to  repentance  should  always  ring 
out  with  no  uncertain  sound.  Nothing  less  than  such 
preaching  can  furnish  a  thorough  preparation  for  the 
saving  faith  that  lays  hold  upon  Christ;  and  the  largest 
infusion  and  strongest  expression  of  it  are  called  for  in 
the  preaching  of  the  present  day.  Repentance  was 
always  the  burden  of  the  New  Testament  messages  to 
dying  men.  When  John  the  Baptist,  the  forerunner 
of  Christ,  came  preaching  in  the  wilderness,  it  was 
with  the  cry:  ''Repent  ye:  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  at  hand."*  When  Christ  entered  upon  his 
ministry  his  earliest  call  was:  "Repent:  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."f  Later  in  that  minis- 
try, in  exhorting  the  captious  Jews  "  not  to  lose  the 
short  season  of  grace  and  salvation,"  his  thrilling  and 
repeated  warning  was  :  "Except  ye  repent,  ye  shall 
all  likewise  perish.  "J  After  Christ's  resurrection,  in 
that  rousing  sermon  at  Pentecost,  Peter  drew  to  a  close 
with  the  same  peremptory  call:  "Repent,  and  be 
baptized  every  one  of  you  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ, 
for  the  remission  of  sins,  and  ye  shall  receive  the  gift 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  "§ 

Such  preaching  alone  will  prepare  sinful  men  for  the 
appreciation  and  reception  of  the  Gospel. 


II.    The  Gospel  Essential  to  the   Message. 

In  presenting  Bible  Christianity  as  God's  saving 
power,  the  preacher  needs  to  press  upon  the  lost 
sinner,  with   special  clearness  and  power,  and  as  the 

*  Matt.  iii.  2.      fMatt.  iv.  17.      X  Luke  xiii.  3.      §  Acts  ii.  38. 


98      Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

complement   of   the   law,    the   Gospel    provision    for 
salvation. 

There  are  two  fundamental  aspects  of  the  Gospel 
that  are  often  emphasized  :  that  of  a  doctrine^  and  that 
of  a  life.  There  is  a  marked  tendency  in  this  age  to 
depress  or  ignore  the  doctrine,  and  to  exalt  or  make 
exclusive  the  life.  The  dictum  is  often  put  forth,  as 
if  it  were  an  axiom  or  an  intuition:  ''  Christianity  is  not 
a  doctrine,  but  a  life."  Never  was  graver  or  more 
fatal  error  put  in  human  language.  Man  is  a  rational 
being,  and  his  life  can  only  be  reached,  miracle  and 
supernatural  influence  excepted,  through  his  reason. 
The  only  way  for  the  preacher  to  appeal  to  the  reason 
is  by  doctrine  or  teaching.  Some  thought  or  truth 
must  be  presented,  in  order  to  lay  any  reasonable 
basis  for  rational  or  spiritual  living.  It  is  absurd,  then, 
this  tendency  to  cast  contempt  upon  the  Word  of  God, 
by  calling  its  teachings  dogmas^  and  then  sneering  at 
them  or  ignoring  them  in  preaching.  If  man  were  an 
ape  or  an  idiot,  he  could  afford  to  do  that;  but  so  long 
as  he  remains  a  rational  creature  of  God,  made  in  the 
image  of  God,  and  brought  into  internal  and  inevitable 
relations  to  God,  he  can  not  afford  either  to  sneer  at 
or  to  ignore  any  teachings  or  dogmas  or  doctrines  it 
may  have  pleased  God  to  reveal  to  him  in  his  Word. 

The  old  truth — the  truth  that  the  effective  preacher, 

called  of  God,  needs  to  present — is  that  Christianity 

1  Ch  *  f    "t    ^^  ^  doctrine  and  a  regenerating  power  on 

a  Doctrine  and  the    side  of  God,   to  begin  with;  and  a 

a  Life.         renewed,  sanctified,  consecrated  life,   on 

the  side  of  man,  to  proceed  with.     The  message  that 

leaves  out  either  of  these  features  is  so  far  deficient, 

and  likely  to  fail  of  any  spiritual  results,  or  at  least  of 

any  spiritual  results  worth  the  while. 


THE    PREACHER  S    MESSAGE, 


99 


There  are  two  entirely  distinct  sides  to  the  work  of 
salvation  as  presented  in  the  Bible:  the  God-ward  side 
and  the  man-ward  side. 

To  the  jailer's  question:  **What  must  I  do  to  be 
saved  ?"  the  answer  of  Paul  and  Silas  was  :  *'  Believe 
on  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved."*  That 
presents,  on  the  God-ward  side,  Christ,  as  ''Jesus," 
or  as  the  atoning  sacrifice  and  Savior;  and  as  the 
^'  Lord,"  who  subdues  the  sinner  by  renewing  him,  and 
then  reigns  in  and  over  him.  On  the  man-ward  side, 
it  presents  ''belief  ^;z  "  the  Lord  Jesus,  or  practical 
faith  and  trust,  on  the  sinner's  part;  involving  not  only 
the  resting  of  the  hopes  upon,  but  also  the  consecra- 
tion of  the  life  to  the  service  of  Christ. 

On  its  God-ward  side,  the  Bible  is  full  of  teaching 

concerning   the   work    of    redemption,    as    something 

done    by    God    for    man.       This    is   the  ,,,  -.  , 

•'  (1)  Aeaemption 

aspect    of    redemption     that    has    been  on  its  God- ward 
emphasized — sometimes  doubtless  at  the  ^^^®' 

expense  of  other  essential  features — through  the  cen- 
turies, especially  the  post-reformation  centuries.  It  is 
hard  to  conceive  of  any  folly  more  monumental  than 
that  involved  in  the  present  attempt  to  ignore  or  deny 
it,  in  the  newest  theology,  which  would  fain  make  of 
Christianity  a  transcendental  or  mystical  superstructure 
without  any  foundation.  In  this  matter  the  preacher 
can  not  break  with  the  Christian  ages,  without  break- 
ing with  Christ  and  bankrupting  the  Christian  religion. 
A  single  passage  may  be  taken,  as  summing  up 
several  of  the  features  of  this  side  of  the  work  of 
Christ  as  Redeemer.     Paul  says  :  \ 

"  Being  justified  freely  by  his  grace,  through  the  redemption  that  is 
in  Christ  Jesus  :  whom  God  hath  set  forth  to  be  a  propitiation,  through 

♦Acts  xvi.  31.  f  Rom.  iii.  24-26. 


100      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

faith  in  his  blood,  to  declare  his  righteousness  for  the  remission  of 
sins  that  are  past,  through  the  forbearance  of  God  ;  to  declare,  I  say, 
at  this  time  his  righteousness  :  that  he  might  be  just,  and  the 
justifier  of  him  which  believeth  in  Jesus." 

Here  is  something  manifestly  quite  different  and 
aside  from  a  change  in  personal  behavior  or  a  process 
by  which  man  grows  better.  Here  are  presented 
justification,  propitiation,  redemption,  as  essential 
elements  in  salvation;  and  any  explaining  away  of  the 
plain  teachings  of  this  and  similar  passages,  by  the 
hypothesis  that  they  are  ''accommodations"  to 
Jewish,  or  Roman,  or  other  notions,  is  an  impossi- 
bility in  right  thinking  and  in  rational  interpretation 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  would  be  scouted  as  arrant 
folly  or  sheer  dishonesty,  if  applied  to  any  other 
literary  production  whatsoever.  Christ's  death  is 
here  set  forth  clearly  as  penal,  vicarious,  propitiatory. 
All  this  teaching  implies  law  and  penalty  and  justice; 
and  these  conceptions  carry  with  them  corresponding 
sets  of  ideas,  that  are  not  peculiar  to  the  Word  of  God 
merely,  but  run  through  all  human  laws  and  institu- 
tions, and  through  all  human  conduct.  The  Scriptures 
are  full  of  these  ideas.  The  whole  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment system  is  merely  their  embodiment  in  symbols 
and  types  and  shadows.  The  Bible  presents  the  lost 
condition  of  man,  and  then,  upon  that  presupposition, 
insists  everywhere  on  the  necessity  for  atonement, 
propitiation,  and  redemption,  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  justice.  It  represents  the  great  problem 
before  the  Divine  Mind  in  redemption  as  being,  how 
to  save  man  from  the  just  penalty  of  sin,  and  at  the 
same  time  preserve  God's  justice  and  truth  intact. 
Unquestionably  the  tendency  of  the  liberalism  of 
these   times  is   to   minimize  or  to  explain  away  this 


THE   PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  lOI 

necessary  work  of  God  for  lost  men.  This  drift  has 
doubtless  resulted  largely  from  the  ignoring  of  the 
divine  law,  or  the  lowering  of  its  requirements,  or  the 
loss  of  a  sense  of  its  sacredness  and  inexorableness — 
due  to  the  failure  of  preacher  and  moralist  to  under- 
stand, appreciate,  and  enforce  its  nature  and  scope 
and  claims.  As  a  natural  consequence,  sin  has  come 
to  be  regarded  as  a  little  thing;  and  man  has  so  lost 
out  the  sense  of  it  that  he  has  ceased  to  feel  the  need 
of  any  great  work  of  atonement,  on  the  part  of  the 
God-man,  as  an  essential  element  in  salvation. 

Equally  important  with  a  return  to  the  appreciation 
and  distinct  preaching  of  the  law  of  God — if  not  even 
more  important — is  a  return  to  the  Bible  view  of  the 
work  done  by  God  for  man's  salvation  in  redemption. 
Men  are  in  perishing  need  of  hearing  the  doctrine  of 
atonement,  or  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  upon  the  cross 
to  satisfy  the  divine  justice,  and  as  the  sinner's  substi- 
tute before  the  law.  Not  less  important  than  the 
return  to  the  preaching  of  repentance  toward  God  is 
the  return  to  the  preaching  of  the  propitiation  of  God. 

On  its  man-ward  side,  the  Bible  is  full  of  doctrine 
concerning   what   redemption   accomplishes   for   man 
and    in  man,  and  of  which  the  preacher  ^^^  Redemption 
should  make    larger  use,  if  the  ends  of  in  its  Applica- 
redemption  for  man  and  in  man  are  to  be  ^^°^* 

attained.  The  Apostle  Paul  presents  this  divine  work, 
in  connection  with  his  three  great  *' therefores,"  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  ''  Therefore^  being  justi- 
fied by  faith  "  (Rom.  v.  i) ;  *'  There  is  therefore  now  no 
condemnation"  (Rom.  viii.  i);  "I  beseech  you  there- 
fore^ brethren,  by  the  mercies  of  God"  (Rom.  xii.  i). 

On  the  threshold,  and  prepared  for  by  the  preaching 
of  the  law  and  of  the  atonement  by  Christ  for  man,  is 


I02     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  in  Jesus  Christ, 
the  great  test  doctrine  from  the  point  of  view  of 
Protestantism.  It  is  Luther's  doctrine  of  a  "standing 
or  falling  Church."  Paul  introduces  this  point  by  his 
first  '  *  therefore. '  * 

And  just  here  there  is  need  of  special  caution 
against  confounding  justification  with  sanctification. 
By  confounding  the  two  and  giving  to  the  former 
merely  the  signification  of  the  latter,  the  new  liberalism 
is  remanding  the  Church  to  the  bondage  to  the  law 
from  which  the  Reformation  sought  to  deliver  her. 
Justification  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  change  in  the 
relation  of  the  sinner  to  God  and  his  law,  made  by  the 
grace  of  God  on  the  ground  of  faith  in  a  righteousness 
provided  by  God.  It  is  not  God's  making  the  sinner 
good  or  righteous;  but  his  regarding  and  treating  him 
as  righteous,  on  the  ground  of  what  Christ  has  done 
for  him.  Justification  is  a  forensic  conception,  based 
upon  the  sinner's  relation  to  God  in  law  and  justice. 
Romanism  and  the  new  liberalism  confound  this  treat- 
ing of  man  as  righteous,  with  making  him  righteous; 
and  so  remand  the  Christian  to  the  old  system  of  law, 
leaving  him  to  live  on  in  legal  bondage,  instead  of  in  a 
condition  of  grace.  In  the  Bible  and  Protestant  view, 
justification  is  the  necessary  preparation  for  regen- 
eration and  sanctification,  and  for  all  that  follows 
them  in  the  Christian  life.  It  introduces  the  sinner 
into  a  state  of  grace  in  which,  having  been  justified 
for  Christ's  sake,  God  treats  him  as  tho  he  were 
actually  righteous;  graciously  bestowing  upon  him,  in 
consideration  of  his  acceptance  of  what  Christ  has 
done  for  him,  all  that  he  needs  of  help  and  life  and 
saving  power.  The  Roman  doctrine,  in  ignoring  this 
distinction,  is  fatal  to  vital  Christianity,  and,  where 


THE   PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  I03 

fully  accepted,  inevitably  leads  to  dead  legalism  and 
formalism,  in  short,  to  that  whole  system  of  works 
which  makes  the  righteousness  of  Christ  of  none  effect. 

This  justification  is  by  faith.  Not  that  faith  is  any 
great  thing  in  itself,  or  has  any  merit  in  itself;  but 
that  God  has  used  faith,  in  accordance  with  the  con- 
stitution of  man's  nature,  as  the  agency  for  adjusting 
the  relations  of  the  great  scheme  of  redemption.  It 
is  the  soul's  act  in  receiving  the  atonement  made  for  it 
by  Christ,  and  resting  upon  Christ  alone  for  salvation. 
It  takes  in  the  soul's  act  of  repentance,  which  is  the 
turning  away  from  sin  and  wandering,  in  turning  back 
toward  God  and  fixing  its  thoughts,  feelings,  and  pur- 
poses on  God  as  revealed  in  Christ  its  Savior.  It  is 
the  attitude  and  drift  of  the  Christian  soul  God-ward. 
In  its  connection  with  justification,  it  therefore  shapes 
character  and  decides  the  conduct  and  the  life.  It  is 
like  the  key  in  its  adaptation  to  the  adjustments  of  the 
lock,  insignificant  in  itself,  but  great  in  its  accomplish- 
ments because  of  that  adaptation. 

Justification  by  faith  thus  becomes,  on  the  man-ward 
side,  the  foundation  of  the  Christian  life.  It  is  easy 
to  see,  in  the  light  of  these  relations,  why  the  great 
reformer  of  the  sixteenth  century  made  so  much  of  it; 
and  why  Paul,  in  the  one  authoritative  treatise  in  the 
Bible  on  the  way  of  salvation,  makes  so  much  of  it.  It 
is  the  parting  of  the  way  between  Romanism  and  legal 
liberalism,  and  genuine  evangelical  religion.  It  is  the 
one  only  and  essential  basis  and  starting-point  in  vital 
piety  and  a  right  religious  life.  The  so-called  preach- 
ing of  Christianity  that  omits  it  is  necessarily  without 
regenerating  and  saving  ef^cacy. 

Regeneration  and  sanctification  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
accompany  or  follow  upon  justification,  being  prepared 


104      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

for  by  it.  The  doctrines  concerning  these  need  to  be 
made  especially  prominent  in  the  preacher's  message 
in  this  age.  The  historic  passage  on  the  first  of  these 
doctrines  is,  of  course,  Christ's  teaching  to  Nicodemus 
in  the  third  chapter  of  John.  The  second  doctrine 
Christ  expressed  in  one  of  the  most  intense  yearnings 
in  his  Intercessory  Prayer  (John  xvii.  i8,  19),  and  the 
Bible  is  full  of  it. 

The  tendency,  as  already  seen,  has  been  of  the 
strongest  to  displace  regeneration  by  reformation. 
But  Christ  himself  taught,  with  that  double  verily  which 
he  never  used  except  in  connection  with  life-and-death 
doctrines,  **  Except  a  man  be  born  again,  he  can  not 
see  the  kingdom  of  God,"  and  again  :  *'  Except  a  man 
be  born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit,  he  can  not  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  God."  Most  assuredly,  that  without 
which  man  can  neither  see  nor  enter  into  the  Kingdom 
of  God  must  be  an  essential  in  the  Christian  religion; 
and  the  preaching  that  ignores  it  is  not  the  preaching 
for  which  the  Master  commissioned  his  messengers. 

The  tendency  has  been  equally  marked  to  ignore  or 
slur  over  the  doctrine  of  sanctification  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  to  teach  in  its  place  outward,  moral  refor- 
mation. Outward  change  of  conduct  that  has  no  root 
in  that  truth  by  which  Christ  prayed  that  his  followers 
might  be  sanctified,  and  in  which  the  Holy  Spirit,  the 
divine  author  of  sanctification,  has  no  part,  can  not 
properly  claim  to  have  any  spiritual  value. 

A  renewed  life  of  righteousness,  holiness,  and  ser- 
vice,  on  the  part  of  the  believer,  is  the   natural  and 

(3)  The  New  necessary  outcome  of  justification,  re- 
Life  in  Christ,  generation,  and  sanctification.  This  is 
what  the  Apostle  Paul  introduces  by  his  third  emphatic 
^^  therefore''  (Rom.  xii.  i). 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  10$ 

The  Christian  is  saved,  not  merely  for  his  own  sake, 
nor  for  his  own  special  comfort  and  selfish  enjoyment, — 
a  conception  that  would  neutralize  or  nullify  salvation 
itself, — but  for  the  great  interests  and  services  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  in  which  he  is  to  be  a  coworker 
with  Christ  and  all  other  Christians,  for  the  glory  of 
God  and  the  salvation  of  the  world — in  short,  in  the 
carrying  out  of  the  Great  Commission. 

The  in7ter  life  of  religion  is  an  essential  element  in 
the  Bible  idea  of  Christianity,  and  forms  the  only 
adequate  basis  for  the  right  outward  life  of  Christian 
activity.  The  preacher  needs  to  emphasize  this 
feature  in  the'  present  age.  Christians  in  the  past  no 
doubt  sometimes  gave  too  exclusive  attention  to  the 
inner,  contemplative  life  of  faith,  devoting  themselves 
morbidly  to  the  work  of  introspection  and  self-exami- 
nation; but  the  tendency  of  the  completed  organiza- 
tions, the  vast  machinery  of  the  present  day,  is  to 
sink  this  element,  and  keep  in  view  only  the  out- 
ward activity.  The  true  mean  is  to  be  found  in 
calling  men  back  to  the  life  of  reflection  and  con- 
templation, not  for  its  own  sake,  nor  as  a  means  of 
spiritual  comfort,  but  as  furnishing  the  only  living 
basis  for  real,  genuine  spiritual  activity  in  the  service 
of  Christ. 

Preachers   would    do   well   to   review    their  system 
of   fundamental   doctrines,   from   time   to   time,  and, 
taking  a  broad  view  of  the  field,  to  com-     fouj.  F^n^a- 
plete   and    round   out    that    system    in     mental  Doc- 
accordance  with  the  latest  illumination         trines. 
of  God's  truth  by  the  Holy  Spirit.     Such  a  review  will 
lead,  not  to  an  addition  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Word 
of   God,    **  The   faith   07ice  for   all  delivered   to   the 
saints,"  but  to  a  better  comprehension  of  the  Scriptural 


io6    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

doctrines  that  stand  out  prominently  in  the  Christian 
consciousness  of  the  Church  of  the  present  day. 
There  are  the  old  doctrines,  that  have  long  been 
recognized  as  essential  by  the  Church  of  Christ,  and 
that  are  still  essential:  the  doctrine  of  an  inspired 
revelation  from  God,  laying  a  sure  foundation  for 
Christian  faith;  the  doctrine  of  a  vicarious  atonement 
by  the  active  and  passive  obedience  of  Christ,  present- 
ing a  way  of  salvation  indorsed  by  God  himself;  and 
the  doctrine  of  regeneration  by  the  Holy  Spirit, 
furnishing  men  the  needed  power  for  the  application 
of  this  divinely  revealed  and  divinely  wrought  atone- 
ment. But  since  the  age  of  the  Reformation,  through 
the  spiritual  awakening  of  the  Church  to  its  great 
mission  of  saving  the  w^orld,  a  fourth  doctrine  of  the 
Word  of  God  has  been  brought  into  peculiar  and 
appropriate  prominence,  in  the  mind  of  the  Christian 
Church :  the  doctrine  of  Christian  service  for  the 
Master,  that  makes  every  saved  soul  a  coworker  with 
Christ,  under  the  Great  Commission,  in  the  work  of 
giving  the  Gospel  to  all  mankind,  and  that,  as  already 
seen,  binds  every  follower  of  Christ  to  devote  himself, 
with  all  his  powers  and  possessions,  to  that  as  the 
supreme  end  of  his  life  on  earth.  This  new  doctrine — 
not  new  to  the  Word  of  God,  nor  new  to  the  Christian 
of  missionary  spirit  in  any  age,  but  new  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  Church  as  a  whole — needs  to  be 
added  to  the  others  already  emphasized  as  essentials. 
If  the  Gospel  structure  in  the  world  is  to  stand  out 
four-square  to  all  the  winds  of  heaven,  these  four 
corner-stones  must  all  be  laid  underneath — Christ  with 
his  atonement,  the  chief  corner-stone;  the  inspired 
revelation,  divine  regeneration,  and  Christian  service, 
the  remaining  corner-stones. 


THE    PREACHER  S    MESSAGE.  I07 

At  the  same  time,  the  message  of  the  preacher  must 
take  in  the  truth  that  redemption  is  to  be  regarded  as 
a  manifold  process,  every  phase  of  which  g  Redemption 
should  occupy  its  proportionate  part  has  Manifold 
and  its  appropriate  place,  in  "holding  Aspects, 
forth  the  word  of  life  "  to  lost  men.  Failures  in  this 
regard  have  always  led,  not  only  to  seriously  defective 
views,  but  also  to  unsatisfactory  results.  That  there 
have  been  such  failures  goes  without  saying.  It 
seems  well-nigh  impossible  for  the  preacher  with  his 
many  distractions,  and  even  for  the  quiet  and  con- 
templative theological  thinker  without  any  distrac- 
tions, to  take,  and  keep  always  in  mind,  a  broad  and 
comprehensive  view  of  a  great  subject,  with  so  many 
prominent  factors  and  features.  Yet  nothing,  except 
perhaps  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  is  more 
important  to  be  borne  in  mind  by  the  preacher  than 
that  redemption  has  manifold  relations,  all  of  which 
are  essential  to  its  integrity. 

It  has  its  legal  aspect.     It  is  God's  work  of  freeing 
the  sinner  from  the  bondage  and  curse      (d  Legal 
of  the  law.     Paul  says,  in  Rom.  v.  i,   2:        Aspect. 

"  Therefore  being  justified  by  faith,  we  have  peace  with  God, 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ :  by  whom  also  we  have  access  by 
faith  into  this  grace  wherein  we  stand,  and  rejoice  in  hope  of  the 
glory  of  God." 

Doubtless  the  perversion  of  this  view  has  often  led  to 
antinomianism,  but  it  is  nevertheless  an  essential  part 
of  divine  truth. 

It  has  its  governmental  aspect,  as  it  seeks  to  bring 
the  sinner  into  right  relations  to  the  divine  govern- 
ment, under  which  he  must  live  whether     (g)  Govern- 
he  will  or  not.     The  perversion  of  this  mental  Aspect, 
aspect  has  led  to  the  governmental  theory,  regarded 


io8    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

as  a  complete  theory  of  redemption.  But  notwith- 
standing the  error  possibly  resulting,  this  too  must  be 
retained  and  presented  as  essential. 

It  has  its  moral  aspect,  proposing  to  bring  the 
sinner  to  a  right  life  before  God,  and  in  doing  this 

(3)  Moral  bringing  to  bear  upon  him  the  moral 
Aspect.  influence  of  all  the  truths  and  motives  of 
religion.  The  perversion  of  this  may  have  led  to  the 
moral  influence  theory — Bushnellism  and  all  that — a 
scheme  that  in  its  extreme  form  would  make  *'  nature 
and  nurture  "  adequate  to  all  needed  changes  in  the 
sinner's  character,  and  would  exclude  divine,  super- 
natural regeneration,  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  **by 
and  with  the  truth  "  of  the  Word  of  God.  But  the 
truth  involved  in  it  is  an  essential  element  in  redemp- 
tion, and  must  be  enforced,  tho  always  in  its  proper 
relation,  as  such. 

It  has  its  dynamic  aspect,  for  Christ  on  the  throne 
of   the    universe    has   become    the   possessor    of  all 

(4)  Dynamic  authority  and  power,  to  be  used  in  mak- 
Aspect.  ing  "all  things  work  together  for  good  " 
to  those  who  love  God.  The  too  common  neglect 
of  this  has  led  to  mistaken  views  of  the  inevitable- 
ness  of  natural  consequences  following  upon  all  sin. 
The  perversion  of  it  has  led  men  to  naturalistic  views 
respecting  what  redemption  can  do  for  man.  Such 
views  have  regarded  the  Christian  as  wholly  subject  to 
natural  law,  and  doomed  to  reap  the  natural  conse- 
quences of  his  sins,  despite  the  grace  of  salvation. 
But,  while  guarding  against  the  error  and  perversion, 
the  truth  must  be  enforced,  that,  in  the  work  of 
redemption,  omnipotence,  in  the  person  of  Christ  on 
the  throne,  comes  in  to  deliver,  as  it  only  can  deliver, 
the  penitent  from  natural  retribution. 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  IO9 

It  has  its  aspect  of  self-sacrifice  and  of  service,  as 
illustrated  in  the  lives  of  the  redeemed  in  following 
the  example  of  Christ.  The  perversion  (5)  Aspect  of 
of  this  has  led  to  dead  works,  to  efforts  Service, 
after  salvation  by  works,  to  legal  bondage,  and,  in  this 
age,  to  Christian  socialism  in  its  extreme  forms.  The 
fault  has  been,  not  in  undue  devotion  to  works,  but  in 
undue  exaltation  of  human  works  and  merit.  The 
office  of  self-sacrifice  and  service  is  to  demonstrate 
the  saved  condition  and  exhibit  the  gratitude  of  the 
saved;  to  give  expression  to  the  renewed  life,  and  to 
push  the  work  of  the  Great  Commission  to  its  consum- 
mation— and  to  this  office,  as  a  factor  of  redemption, 
the  preacher  should  give  all  emphasis. 

It  has  its  sacrificial  and  vicarious  aspect — the  one 
upon  which  the  Bible  places  special  emphasis — repre- 
senting the  crucified  Christ  as  the  sacri-  (g)  Sacrificial 
fice  for  sin,  and  as  the  lost  sinner's  Aspect, 
substitute  before  the  law  and  justice  of  God.  The 
perversion  of  this,  or  its  exclusive  consideration, 
even  tho  it  be  the  most  important  factor  of  all,  has 
often  led  to  selfish  indolence  and  carnal  security,  in 
connection  with  a  life  demonstrating  the  man  not  a 
Christian  at  all.  Oftener,  however,  its  neglect  has 
remanded  man  to  the  bondage  of  law,  and  left  him 
without  any  salvation,  since  ''without  shedding  of 
blood  there  is  no  remission  "  of  sin.  This  last  defect, 
with  its  tendency  to  discredit  divine  revelation  and  all 
Scriptural  agencies  and  influences,  is  the  defect  against 
which  the  preacher  needs  most  earnestly  to  set  him- 
self in  his  preaching  to  the  present  generation,  as  this 
is  the  most  marked  current  phase  of  error,  and  most 
fatal  to  the  success  of  Christianity  as  a  saving  power. 

All  these  great  truths  and  phases  of  the  Gospel  enter 


no    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

into  the  full  message  of  the  preacher,  and  constitute 
its  essentials.  So  far  as  that  message  has  been  effect- 
ive in  any  age,  it  has  been  because  of  their  more  or 
less  complete,  more  or  less  faithful,  presentation. 
There  can  be  no  question  regarding  their  importance 
as  factors  in  the  preaching  of  Biblical  Christianity 
as  a  saving  power.  A  question  that  has,  however, 
arisen,  in  these  later  days,  and  that  has  been  promi- 
nently before  the  public,  and  needs  now  to  be  con- 
sidered, is  :  Shall  this  preaching  take  on  a  doctrinal 
form  ? 


SECTION   THIRD. 

Bible  Christianity  in  Doctrinal  Form  an  Essential. 

• 

In  presenting  Bible  Christianity  as  a  saving  power, 
the  preacher  needs,  at  the  present  day,  to  give  special 
attention  to  the  right  doctrinal  presentation  of  the 
great  truths  that  cluster  around  and  center  in  salva- 
tion by  the  cross  of  Christ. 

We  are  quite  aware  that  this  does  not  give  expres- 
sion to  the  tendency  of  the  present  day.  With  a  few, 
the  question  of  abandoning  doctrinal  teaching  and 
preaching  is  no  longer  regarded  as  an  open  question. 
Such  teaching  and  preaching  they  have  already  dis- 
carded. Very  many  are  sure  that  the  matter  has  gone 
much  further,  and  they  loudly  affirm  that  only  fossils 
and  old  fogies  think  of  continuing  to  give  any  atten- 
tion to  the  great  Scriptural  doctrines  that  once  con- 
stituted the  staple  of  all  evangelical  preaching.  In 
view  of  this  state  of  things,  the  preacher  needs  to 
inquire  very  seriously: 

How  has  this  break  with  past  methods  come  about? 


THE    PREACHERS   MESSAGE.  Ill 

Is  it  rationally  or  Biblically  justifiable  ? 

What  is  the  true  method  of  presenting  the  message 
of  the  Gospel,  and  does  it  not  require  a  return  to  all 
that  was  essential  in  the  past  methods  now  partially 
discredited  ? 

If  the  reasons  for  the  present  tendency  to  eschew 
doctrinal  teaching  and  preaching  are  fairly  and  can- 
didly weighed,  we  think  that  their  consideration  will 
not  only  show  clearly,  but  also  emphasize  tremen- 
dously, the  imperative  need  for  a  powerful  revival  of 
such  teaching  and  preaching. 


I.  Change  of  Method  from  Erroneous  Views. 

The  reasons  for  the  present  tendency  are  to  be 
looked  for  in  the  influence  of  the  current  philosophic 
opinions  and  of  the  resulting  practical  life.  The 
philosophy  shapes  the  conduct;  hence,  the  explanation 
of  the  latter  is  to  be  found  in  the  former.  It  will 
appear,  from  even  a  cursory  examination,  that  certain 
philosophical  assumptions,  all  equally  baseless,  have 
resulted  in  placing  a  ban  upon  the  preaching  of 
the  great  Christian  doctrines,  and  in  leaving  thefn  at 
a  discount  in  the  estimation  of  the  Church  of  the 
present  day. 

A  shallow  rationalistic  transcendentalism  has  per- 
sistently  assumed    and    asserted    the    supremacy   of 
philosophy  over   faith   and    the  antago-   i,  influence  of 
nism  of  the  two,  until  the  mass  of  man-  Shallow  Trans- 
kind  almost  feel  that  the  great  distinctive    ceiidentalism. 
doctrines  of   Christianity    have    been    generally   dis- 
carded as  quite  obsolete.     What  ground  is  there  for 
this? 


112      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

We  have  nothing  to  say  against  a  rational  transcen- 

dentaHsm;  rather  everything  in  its  favor.     It  has  its 

(1)  Rational     legitimate   sphere,  and   is  the  only  pos- 

Transcen-      gible  basis  of  a  rational,  as  disting^uished 
dentalism  Le-  '  ** 

gitimate.       from   a   purely   speculative,  philosophy. 

There  is  no  antagonism  between  such  a  system  of 
philosophy  and  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  system. 
This  is  made  plain  by  the  relations  of  philosophy  and 
Christian  faith.* 

The  sources  of  the  two,  philosophy  and  faith,  are 
entirely  different.  Philosophy  seeks  a  knowledge  of 
ultimate  facts  and  principles,  by  studying  man,  the 
universe,  and  God,  as  revelations  of  such  principles, 
and  verifying  these  by  reason — in  order  to  find  the 
final  explanation  of  all  existences.  Christianity  finds 
the  source  of  its  truth  in  the  Bible,  accepted  as  a 
revelation  from  God.  The  two  deal,  to  a  certain 
extent,  with  the  same  themes — man,  the  universe,  and 
God,  and  the  relations  of  these;  but  the  starting- 
points  and  the  modes  of  procedure  are  different. 
Philosophy  culminates  in  these  truths  as  the  end  of  its 
rational  processes;  Christianity  starts  out  with  them 
as  a  direct  revelation  from  God  in  the  Bible.  The  one 
depends  upon  reason,  the  other  upon  faith.  The  one 
says  :  "  This  is  intuitive  truth  ";  the  other,  "This  is 
the  testimony  of  God."  The  evidence  in  each  sphere 
is  distinct  and  peculiar.  In  philosophy,  inductive 
verification  is  employed,  in  bringing  out  rational 
principles  as  tested  by  the  canons  of  intuition — self- 
evidence,   necessity,  and  catholicity;   in  our  religion, 

*  The  reader  will  find  special  help  and  inspiration  on  this  subject 
in  an  .article  by  the  late  Dr.  Henry  B.  Smith,  entitled  "  the  Rela- 
tions of  Faith  and  Philosophy,"  in  his  volume,  Faith  and  Philosophy^ 
published  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York. 


THE   PREACHERS   MESSAGE.  II3 

induction  proper  is  made  use  of,  on  the  basis  of  the 
facts  and  truths  in  God's  Word  written.  It  is  appar- 
ent, therefore,  that  the  range  of  Christian  doctrine  is 
vastly  more  extended  than  the  sphere  of  philosophy, 
as  the  range  of  revelation  is  much  wider  than  that  of 
intuition. 

Nor  is  faith  in  the  Christian  system  simply  a  blind 
trust;  it  is  rather  a  rational  belief  or  conviction.  It 
rests  on  a  revelation  historically  attested,  confirmed 
by  miracle  and  prophecy,  centering  in  Jesus  Christ, 
and  recorded  in  an  inspired  book,  and  proposing  and 
claiming  to  solve  the  great  problems  .of  human  life 
and  destiny.  It  has  its  corresponding  subjective  evi- 
dence, in  the  profound  experiences  in  which  I  the 
believer's  soul  responds  to  this  great  divine  revela- 
tion, and  all  centering  in  the  same  divine  person  as 
the  historical  revelation.  This  revelation  has  entered 
into  and  controlled  the  whole  course  of  human  history 
and  human  thought — the  movement  of  the  old  world, 
before  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  converging  to  the  cross 
of  Calvary,  and  the  movement  of  the  ages  since 
radiating  from  that  same  cross,  thus  confirming  the 
historical  revelation  and  the  experience.  The  great 
problems  of  the  universe,  the  life-and-death  questions 
always  pressing  upon  the  human  soul,  this  revelation 
answers  with  sublime  simplicity,  clearness,  certainty, 
and  sufficiency  in  its  doctrines  of  creation,  providence, 
original  sin,  incarnation,  and  redemption — making  all 
again  center  in  the  person  and  work  of  the  historical 
Christ. 

Resting,  as  does  the  Christian  faith,  upon  such  a 
vast  scheme  of  rational  evidence,  no  weapon  forged 
from  so-called  reason  or  intuition  has  ever  been 
lifted  against  it  to  prosper.     Indeed,  what  clear  utter- 


114      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

ance  has  intuition  to  make  about  the  Trinity  and 
the  nature  of  God,  the  origin  of  sin  and  evil,  the  work 
of  redemption,  the  judgment  of  man  and  his  final 
destiny  ?  And,  so  far  as  those  truths  are  concerned, 
concerning  which  intuition,  reason,  has  something  to 
say,  its  utterances  are  in  accord  with  those  of  revela- 
tion. It  is  only  by  speculation,  and  by  perversion  of 
principles,  that  antagonism  has  been  made  to  appear 
to  exist  between  the  two. 

In   short,    the    whole    vast   fabric    of    rationalistic 

philosophy   is   made   up   of   speculation,   based    upon 

(2)  Rational-    assumption    and    assertion.       A     single 

dentalismBase-  ^^^"^P^^  will  illustrate  the  entire  method 
less.  and  scheme.     The  so-called  philosopher 

affirms  that  there  is  no  God,  and  therefore  that  the 
Bible  revelation  of  God  is  baseless,  and  Christianity 
the  latest  and  most  stupendous  of  the  ancient  super- 
stitions. But  how  does  he  reach  his  affirmation  ? 
He  asserts  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  spirit,  and 
no  such  thing  as  cause,  and  therefore  no  such  being 
as  the  Infinite  Spirit  and  the  First  Cause.  Now, 
all  this  is  in  the  very  face  of  the  most  certain  of  our 
intuitive  knowledges.  For  the  most  intimate  and 
fundamental  knowledge  is  that  of  our  existence  as 
spiritual  personalities,  and  of  our  causal  agency; 
since  these  are  involved  in  all  our  conscious  activity. 
The  philosopher,  professing  to  deal  with  reason  and 
intuition,  and  to  set  these  up  as  authorities  against 
revelation,  starts  out  therefore  by  assuming  the  con- 
tradictories of  the  real  intuitions,  and  bases  all  his 
speculation  upon  these  fundamental  lies.  It  is  all 
mere  brazen  assertion.  And  that  is  the  best  that  Mill 
and  Spencer,  the  modern  Aristotle  and  Plato,  can  do  ! 
On  such  grounds   their  senseless  followers  raise  the 


THE   preacher's  MESSAGE.  II5 

cry  that  Christianity  is  obsolete,  and  bow  down  and 
worship  the  great  philosophers!  For  a  ''Thus  saith 
the  Lord,"  they  have  substituted,  ''  Thus  it  is  written 
in  the  books  of  Mill  and  Spencer!  " 

Let  it  be  understood  then  and  affirmed,  in  the  face 
of  this  **  philosophy  falsely  so-called,"  that  there  is 
not  one  fact  or  doctrine  in  all  the  Christian  system 
that  a  true  and  rational  philosophy  has  ever  done  any- 
thing else  than  to  confirm.  The  relation  of  philosophy 
and  faith  is  not  that  of  absolute  exclusion — philosophy 
or  faith;  nor  that  of  antagonism — philosophy  versus 
faith;  but  that  of  harmony  and  co-operation — philoso- 
phy and  faith.  It  would  be  as  senseless  and  irrational 
to  give  up  the  great  Scriptural  doctrines,  because  of 
this  persistent  and  impudent  cry  of  rationalism  about 
the  **  collapse  of  the  supernatural,"  as  it  would  be  for 
the  world  to  suspend  all  its  business  activities  because 
Vennor  predicts  a  coming  cyclone,  or,  rather,  because 
of  the  one  that  he  predicted  but  which  did  not  come. 

A  still  more  shallow  sensationalism  and  material- 
ism,   culminating    in    the    all-pervasive    teaching   of 

Herbert   Spencer,   has  gone  far  toward   „  ^  „ 

J  J , .  ,  .     ,        t  2,  Influence  of 

muddling   the   mmds   of   men   over   the       shallow 

question  whether  we  are  anything  more  Materialism, 
than  developed  brutes,  or,  worse  than  that,  anything 
more  than  mere  developments  of  matter  and  motion  by 
redistribution.  ''There  is  no  God,  no  soul,  no  free- 
dom, no  immortality — at  bottom,  only  matter  and 
motion."  This  is  sensationalism  run  mad,  "the  phi- 
losophy of  dirt"  clasping  hands  with  the  philosophy 
of  brutality.  Animal  enjoyment  is  the  great  end  of 
existence.  Virtue  consists  in  pursuing  it  under  stress 
of  the  master  instincts  of  nutrition  and  reproduction, 
and  is  thus  merged  in  pure  bestiality.     God  there  is 


ii6     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

none,  except  perhaps  the  double,  or  supposed  ghost,  of 
our  great-great-grandfather  !  Of  course  both  religion 
and  virtue  are  blotted  out  and  men  are  left  to  bald 
animalism  and  blank  despair. 

And  this  is  the  so-called  new  philosophy  that  scouts 
God  and  revelation  and  Christianity !  Now  philosophy, 
according  to  Ueberweg,  is  "the  science  of  principles  "  ;* 
but  this  scheme  of  so-called  philosophy  has  no  princi- 
ples, and  its  assumptions  and  assertions  fly  in  the  face 
of  all  the  fundamental  truths  of  reason.  Its  truth, 
which  its  followers  boast  of  as  being  established,  is 
just  as  nearly  demonstrated,  and  just  as  demonstrable, 
as  the  proposition  that  "the  moon  is  made  of  green 
cheese";  and  it  has  just  as  much  philosophical  basis 
as  that  proposition.  It  is  high  time  that  thinking 
men  should  wake  up  to  this  fact  of  the  essentially 
irrational  character  of  this  pretentious  system,  and 
estimate  it  at  its  real>  rational  value,  which  is  mathe- 
matically expressed  by  zero.  It  is  a  "bugaboo,"  and 
not  a  philosophy. 

But  perhaps  the  chief  force  militating  against  doc- 
trinal teaching  and  preaching  is  the  indefinite  think- 
3.  Influence  of  i"g»     ^^    no-thinking,    embodied    in    so 
Indefinite      much  of  what  is  furnished  for  popular 
111?'      reading.     It  commonly  takes  on  a  highly 
rhetorical  form. 

These  false  philosophies,  in  connection  with  others 
of  kindred  nature  inherited  from  the  past,  with  the  aid 
of  all  the  indefinite  theological  thinking,  have  resulted 
in  the  prevalence  of  a  heathen  and  immoral  morality 
that  has  led  to  the  divorce  of  Christian  doctrine  from 
Christian  ethics,  thus  fossilizing  the  former  and  anni- 
hilating the  latter. 

'^  History  of  Philosophy^  vol.  i.  p.  i. 


THE    PREACHERS    MESSAGE.  II7 

Now,  if  this  be  so,  it  is  certainly  a  very  serious  state 
of  things.  The  Fathers  said  :  *' Truth  is  in  order  to 
holiness."  Christian  doctrine  was  evidently  intended 
to  be  the  foundation  of  Christian  ethics — i.  e.,  of  an 
ethics  whose  essential  elements  are  self-renunciation 
and  self-sacrifice  in  devotion  to  Christ,  and  that  leads 
to  a  heroism  that  crucifies  self  and  scorns  all  ends 
centering  merely  in  man,  whether  in  his  happiness,  his 
culture,  or  his  dignity.  The  great  Christian  doctrines, 
rightly  presented,  imperatively  demand,  and  by  the 
grace  of  God  surely  lead  to,  such  Christian  morality. 

But  the  false  and  heathen  philosophy,  new  and  old, 
has  introduced  the  new  morality,  so-called,  of  egoism, 
selfishness  and  mere  humanitarianism.  Ethics  of 
which  bids  man  get  the  best  and  the  Selfishness, 
most  for  his  own  enjoyment,  and  perhaps  for  the 
enjoyment  of  his  fellows,  so  far  as  that  promotes  his 
own.  This  unchristian,  heathen,  unmoral,  or  rather 
immoral,  morality,  based  on  the  ethics  of  animalism, 
has,  as  has  been  already  indicated,  largely  supplanted 
Christian  morality  as  a  theory  of  life.  It  answers  the 
first  question  of  the  catechism.  What  is  the  chief  end 
of  man?  in  its  own  peculiar  style:  **To  have  a  good 
time  and  come  out  number  one!''  The  view  of  prac- 
tical life  is  thus  revolutionized.  There  is  no  room 
for  the  old  doctrines.  They  only  make  men  uncom- 
fortable; and  as  comfort  is  the  chief  end  of  man,  the 
preacher  who  in  this  day  would  preach  those  doctrines 
is  regarded  as  a  brute.  Said  a  lady  to  another  in  a 
fashionable  congregation  recently:  ''How  did  you 
like  Dr.  v.?"  The  reply  was:  **Ah!  the  vulgar  man  ! 
Why,  he  said,  'You  sinners!'"  And  so,  if  they  are 
to  be  preached  at  all,  the  practical  bearings,  the  force 
and  fire,  must  be  taken  out  of  them.     A  congregation 


ii8     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

thoroughly  enlightened  (?)  by  the  new  ethics,  does  not 
and  will  not  hear  of  a  just  God,  sin,  the  judgment, 
hell,  and  everlasting  punishment;  and  therefore  has 
no  conscious  need  to  hear  of  Christ  as  the  incarnate 
Son  of  God,  the  sacrifice  for  sin,  the  atonement,  and 
no  disposition  to  hear  of  him  as  Lord  and  Master. 
They  say  to  the  preacher,  as  Israel  of  old  said  to  the 
prophets  :  ''Prophesy  unto  us  smooth  things."  They 
tell  him  blandly — echoing  Mr.  Greg  and  that  style  of 
essayist — that  there  is  no  possibility  of  the  old  kind  of 
Christian  life;  that  no  man  in  this  age  can  live  the  life 
required  of  the  primitive  Christians;  and  that  Christ 
in  the  very  requirement  showed  the  narrowness  of  his 
age  and  of  himself,  and  proved  that  his  religion  was 
not  the  absolute  religion  ! 

As  a  natural  consequence,  the  systems  of  the  theo- 
logians have  tended  more  and  more  to  become  dry, 

mathematical,  barren  statements — mere 
Dead  Orthodoxy.    ,  ,.  ,  .  ,,    . 

dogmas  divorced  from  all  the  great  prac- 
tical Christian  ends  which  God  contemplated  in  the 
Gospel  revelation — and  often,  as  one  has  remarked, 
** about  as  fit  to  nourish  the  soul  as  sawdust  would  be 
to  nourish  the  body."  So  there  has  been  some  reason 
for  the  cry  of  even  good  Christians  :  **  Don't  give  us 
any  of  your  dry,  dead  theology  !  " 

Even  where  the  old  truth  has  been  preached  with 

freshness  and    living,    practical    power,    the   hearers. 

Distaste  for      under  control   of  the    new  ethics,   have 

Sound  Doctrine.  ^^^^  ^^  ^^^  ^^^  .   <<  Away  with  it  !     Away 

with  it !  It  is  gloomy  and  morose,  and  belongs  to  the 
Dark  Ages  !  We  will  have  none  of  it !  Give  us  some- 
thing abreast  of  the  times.  Your  doctrine  is  a  'back 
number.'"  To  meet  this  popular  demand  the  truth 
has  been  minimized,  until  there  is  little  left  of  doctrine 


THE    PREACHERS   MESSAGE.  II9 

but  the  ** Fatherhood  of  God  "  and  ''Come  to  Jesus  !  " 
in  short,  nothing  but  semi-universalism;  and  nothing 
left  of  ethics  but  heathen  and  minor  morals,  summed 
up  in  the  various  maxims  of  the  lowest  epicureanism 
or  utilitarianism. 

To  vary  and  add  spice  to  this  gospel  of  twaddle, 
which  is  essentially  commonplace  and  monotonous, 
the  preacher  who  is  ''abreast  of  the  times,"  your 
Rev.  Shallow  ^stheticus,  must  add  the  gospel  of 
clap-trap,  of  vinegar,  and  wormwood  (applicable  to  the 
sinners  not  present),  and  of  art  and  esthetics,  until 
the  perfection  of  the  new  state  of  things  is  reached  in 
some  ideal  "Church  of  the  Holy  Oriflamme."  The 
multitudes  must  have  a  "smart  gospel,"  and  prefer 
the  "gospel  of  smartness  "  even  to  that. 

In  fine,  the  question:  "Shall  we  give  up  doctrine  in 
our  teaching  and  preaching?"  really  means,  "Shall 
we,  under  stress  of  a  false  and  heathen  view  of  life — 
called  Christian,  but  without  a  single  Christian  element 
in  it — give  up  Christianity  ? "  The  demand  is  infinitely 
unreasonable. 

II.   Return  to  Doctrine  a  Necessity. 

The  genesis  of  the  present  and  prevailing  treatment 
of  doctrines  in  preaching  would  be  enough,  even  were 
there  nothing  else  to  be  said,  to  stamp  it  as  not  the 
treatment  needed  in  the  preaching  that  is  to  save  the 
world.  But,  besides  and  beyond  all  this,  the  very 
nature  and  aim  of  Gospel  message  make  doctrinal 
preaching  a  necessity.  And  in  view  of  the  defect  and 
failure,  the  preacher  should  understand,  and  the 
Church  should  be  made  to  understand,  that  the  one 
great  and  absolutely  imperative  need  of  the  present 


I20      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

day  is  a  powerful  revival  of  the  right  kind  of  doctrinal 
teaching  and  preaching. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  need  for  the 
revival  of  such  teaching  in  the  training  of  the  ministry. 
That  is,  doubtless,  a  matter  of  vital  import  to  the 
Church.  The  fact  is  well  known  that  the  study  of 
theology  has  been  reduced  to  a  minimum,  other  sub- 
jects having  absorbed  nearly  all  the  time  once  given 
to  it.  Moreover,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  a  homeopathic 
dose  of  theological  lore,  administered  once  a  week, 
through  two  years  of  the  course,  by  means  of  written 
lectures  smoked  and  dried  a  generation  ago,  is  not 
likely  to  result  in  any  theological  plethora.  And  there 
is  undoubtedly  a  growing  feeling  among  competent 
judges  that  there  must  be  a  great  revolution  in  present 
methods,  if  the  Church  is  not  to  perish  of  theological 
inanity  and  emptiness. 

But  apart  from  the  question  of  theological  training, 
it  is  easily  shown  that  the  teaching  and  preaching  of 

1  Doct  '  es     ^^^   great  Christian   doctrines,   in  their 

Essential  to    practical  bearings,   is  the   only  possible 

Preaching,  ^^y  q£  accomplishing  the  ends  sought  in 
Christ's  Kingdom.  The  end  to  be  attained,  in  Gospel 
teaching  and  preaching,  is  ultimately  the  glory  of 
God.  But,  proximately  and  directly,  it  is  to  save 
sinners,  and  to  develop  them  in  Christian  character 
and  power,  so  as  to  make  them  strong  and  intelligent 
coworkers  with  Christ  in  bringing  the  world  back  to 
God.     No  one  will  deny  this. 

It  can  not  be  reasonably  denied  that  the  first  aim  of 
Gospel  teaching  and  preaching  is  to  save  sinners,  or 

(1)  Doctrine    niake  them  Christians.    That  end  can  not 

and  Salvation  ordinarily    be   attained   except   through 

the  fundamental  Christian  doctrines.     In  becoming  a 


THE    PREACHERS    MESSAGE.  121 

Christian  two  things  are  implied  :  the  reception  of 
the  Christian  system  as  the  creed,  and  the  conforming 
of  the  inward  and  outward  life  to  its  teachings.  There 
is  the  acceptance  of  Christ,  first,  as  Savior,  the  sacri- 
ficial atonement  ;  and,  secondly,  as  Lord,  the  Divine 
Master,  to  whom  the  life  is  given  up  in  obedience  and 
devotion.  The  method  of  the  Christian  life  is  that  of 
faith  working  by  love.  Christ  and  the  great  doctrines 
of  revelation  centering  in  him  are  presented  to  the 
sinner  in  the  Divine  Word  on  the  testimony  of  God. 
Upon  them  he  lays  hold  by  faith,  which  thus  becomes 
the  inspiration  of  love  and  devotion.  The  entire 
process  is  properly  a  rational  one,  proceeding  on  the 
basis  of  intelligent  instruction  in  essential  truth. 

From  another  point  of  view,  the  three  R's  are  at  the 
foundation  of  the  transformation  from  death  to  life  : 
Ruin,  Redemption,  and  Regeneration.  The  sinner's 
conception  and  appreciation  of  his  own  ruin  and  lost 
condition  must  depend  upon  his  understanding  of  the 
doctrine  concerning  God,  against  whom  he  has  sinned; 
of  the  nature  and  heinousness  of  sin,  as  transgression 
of  the  holy  law  of  God  ;  of  his  own  depravity  and 
corruption  ;  of  the  powerful  foes  within  and  without 
who  are  seeking  his  destruction;  and  of  the  utter 
hopelessness  of  his  case,  as  a  sinner  hastening  to  the 
bar  of  God.  But  this  involves  all  the  great  doctrines 
of  theology  proper  and  of  anthropology.  His  concep- 
tion and  appreciation  of  redemption  must  depend  upon 
his  knowledge  of  the  doctrines  of  the  everlasting  love 
of  the  Father  for  a  lost  world  ;  of  the  incarnation, 
humiliation,  vicarious  obedience  and  sacrifice,  the 
resurrection,  ascension,  intercession,  and  universal 
and  everlasting  kingdom  of  the  Son  of  God  as  the 
Redeemer.     His  conception  and  appreciation  of  regeii- 


122      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

eration  must  depend  upon  his  knowledge  of  the  con- 
dition and  needs  of  his  own  heart  ;  of  the  person, 
character,  and  mission  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  the 
applier  of  redemption;  and  of  the  nature  of  holiness, 
and  its  necessity  before  God,  in  order  to  peace  and 
eternal  life.  But  this  involves  the  doctrines  of  soteri- 
ology,  as  well  as  those  centering  in  the  Trinity.  In 
fine,  the  preaching  of  Christian  doctrine,  under  the 
stress  of  a  divine  call,  must  necessarily  be  the  only 
intelligent  way  of  seeking  to  save  sinners,  so  long  as 
man  remains  a  rational  being.     As  Paul  phrases  it  : 

"  How  shall  they  believe  except  they  hear  ?  And  how  shall  they 
hear  without  a  preacher  ?  And  how  can  they  preach  except  they  be 
sent?" 

But  the  doctrinal  instruction  is  just  as  essential  to 
the  attainment  of  the  second  aim  of  Gospel  preaching. 
(2)  Doctrine  and  ^^^  saved  sinner  cannot  be  developed 
Christian  Life,  into  a  strong  and  efficient  coworker  with 
Christ,  in  the  work  of  conquering  the  world,  without 
intelligently  grasping,  in  their  practical  Christian 
bearings,  the  divine  teachings  involved  in  the  Chris- 
tian life  and  work. 

Paul  devotes  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians  to  the 
unfolding  of  the   ideal  Christian    life,   as    having   its 

Paul's  Ideal    ground  and  root  in  the  knowledge  and 

Christian.  acceptance  of  the  atonement  of  Christ, 
and  its  model  and  standard  in  the  self-sacrifice  and 
self-denying  career  of  Christ — in  fine,  as  having  its 
beginning,  middle,  and  end  in  Christ.  It  has  its  root 
in  the  "knowledge"  of  Christ  as  furnishing  the  basis 
of  *'love."  He  presents  his  aim  and  theme  at  the 
opening  of  the  Epistle  : 


THE    PREACHERS   MESSAGE.  1 23 

"And  this  I  pray,  that  your  love  may  abound  yet  more  and  more 
in  knowledge  and  all  discernment,  so  that  ye  may  approve  the  things 
that  are  excellent  ;  that  ye  may  be  sincere  and  void  of  offense  unto 
the  day  of  Christ,  being  filled  with  the  fruits  of  righteousness,  which 
are  through  Jesus  Christ,  unto  the  glory  and  praise  of  God." 

But  the  wonderful  presentation  in  brief,  of  the  aim 
of  the  Gospel  in  Christian  character  and    peter's  Ideal 
activity,   is  that  made   by  Peter  in   the      Christian, 
opening  of  his  second  Epistle  :  * 

"  Grace  to  you  and  peace  be  multiplied  in  the  knowledge  of  God 
and  of  Jesus  our  Lord,  seeing  that  his  divine  power  hath  granted 
unto  us  all  things  that  pertain  unto  life  and  godliness,  through  the 
knowledge  of  him  that  called  us  by  his  own  glory  and  virtue,  whereby 
he  hath  granted  unto  us  his  precious  and  exceeding  great  promises  ; 
that  through  these  ye  may  become  partakers  of  the  divine  nature, 
having  escaped  from  the  corruption  that  is  in  the  world  by  lust. 
Yea,  and  for  this  very  cause  adding  on  your  part  diligence,  in  your 
faith  supply  virtue,  and  in  your  virtue  knowledge,  and  in  your 
knowledge  temperance,  and  in  your  temperance  patience,  and  in 
your  patience  godliness,  and  in  your  godliness  love  of  the  brethren, 
and  in  your  love  of  the  brethren  love.  For  if  these  things  are  yours 
and  abound,  they  make  you  to  be  not  idle  nor  unfruitful  unto  the 
knowledge  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

After  laying  the  foundation  of  the  **  precious  faith  " 
**  through  the  righteousness  of  God  and  our  Savior 
Jesus  Christ,"  the  Apostle  unfolds  the  Christian  char- 
acter and  career  for  the  sake  of  which  this  foundation 
is  laid.  It  is  *'  in  the  knowledge  "  of  the  doctrines  ''  of 
God  and  of  Jesus  our  Lord  " — that  is,  in  experimental 
acquaintance  with  these — that  grace  and  peace  are  mul- 
tiplied. Having  his  call  "to  glory  and  strength,"  the 
Christian,  resting  on  God's  promised  power  and  grace, 
is  to  lead  out  the  chorus  of  Christian  graces — faith, 

*  2  Peter  i.  2-8  (Revised  Version). 


124      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE   MINISTRY. 

virtue,  knowledge,  temperance,  patience,  godliness, 
brotherly  love,  love — each  clasping  the  hand  of  the 
one  that  goes  before,  in  making  up  the  circle  of 
spiritual  completeness.  And  the  end  of  all  is  that, 
through  the  abounding  of  these,  the  Christian  man 
maybe  "neither  workless  nor  fruitless  in  advancing 
to  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ" — that 
is,  that  there  may  be  developed  in  him  an  intelligent 
activity  leading  to  abundant  practical  results  in  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ  for  the  glory  of  God. 

Every  sentence  in  these  remarkable  passages  is 
bristling  with  demand  for  large  intelligence  con- 
cerning all  the  great  doctrines  that  center  in  God 
and  Christ  and  the  cross,  and  culminate  in  the  ideal 
Christian  life.  It  would  be  hard  to  state  more  dis- 
tinctly, or  to  emphasize  more  strongly,  the  call  for 
doctrinal  knowledge  as  a  foundation  for  Christian 
character  and  Christian  activity. 

And  this  emphatic  requirement  is  a  most  natural 
one  ;  for  the  rational  spirit  finds  its  appropriate  ali- 
ment in  truth,  and  its  religious  aliment  in  the  truth  of 
the  Word  of  God.  To  make  a  strong  Christian  there 
needs  to  be  developed  that  powerful  character  which 
finds  a  sufficient  basis  only  in  the  grand  doctrines  of 
the  Word  of  God.  As  the  historian  Froude  has  shown 
Froude's  View  ^^  ^^^  Short  Studies^'^  Calvinism,  which 
he  hates,  has  in  all  ages  furnished  the 
substantial  backbone  of  the  moral  universe,  and  the 
pith  and  puissance  of  the  world's  heroism.  His 
friends  may  question  whether  it  has  been  because  it 
is  Calvinism,  or  because  of  the  great  essential  truths 
involved,  but  they  can  not  question  the   fact.     The 

*  Short  Studies  on   Great  Subjects^  Second  Series,  Article   "Cal- 
vinism." 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  I25 

Strong  character  must  be  bottomed  in  great  principles, 
and  the  requisite  principles  have  been  furnished  only 
by  the  doctrines  that  Christianity  has  formulated  in 
answer  to  the  life-and-death  questions  of  the  human 
soul.  It  is  these  truths  alone  that  link  the  Christian 
with  God  and  with  his  sublime  and  eternal  plan.  A 
strong,  heroic,  godlike  Christian  character,  such  as 
Christ  wants  in  his  work,  can  find  no  other  adequate 
basis.  There  is  no  other  possible  way  for  the  develop- 
ment of  genuine  Christian  power. 

However  little  truth  may  be  sufficient  to  maintain  in 
the  pulpit  the  clap-trap  and  fustian  that  claim  to  be  the 
Gospel;  and  to  keep  up  the  life  of  shock-    gj-eat Truths 
ing   selfishness   and    silliness    and    indif-    and  Powerful 
ference  to  the   demands  of   Christ  and  ^^^' 

the  needs  of  a  lost  world,  that  too  often  passes  in  this 
age  for  Christian;  it  must  be  clear  as  sunlight,  to  any 
man  taught  of  God  and  in  sympathy  with  Christ,  that 
this  is  not  adequate  to  make  of  a  saved  sinner  such  a 
coworker  with  Christ  as  can  be  used  for  the  speedy 
evangelization  of  the  world.  That  can  be  done  only 
by  bringing  him  to  a  comprehension  of  the  situation; 
in  short,  leading  him  to  understand  something  of  the 
terrible  struggle  in  which  the  Captain  of  our  salvation 
is  engaged  with  Satan  and  his  hosts;  something  of  the 
lost  and  ruined  condition  of  the  world  of  sinners 
hastening  to  eternal  perdition;  something  of  his  own 
personal  responsibility  for  the  soul  of  his  brother-man 
all  over  the  world;  something  of  his  obligation  as 
a  steward  of  Christ  to  use  all  his  powers  and  posses- 
sions in  the  service  of  Christ  in  saving  men  by  the 
Gospel;  something  of  the  presence  of  Omniscience 
taking  note  of  every  idle  word  and  deed  and  extending 
perpetual  inspiration  and   hope  and  help;  and  some- 


126     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

thing  of  the  absolute  worthlessness  of  a  whole  universe 
of  worldly  treasures  when  balanced  against  even  one 
human  soul.  Who  does  not  see  that  the  divine  hopes 
and  enterprises  revealed  in  these  doctrines  of  the 
Bible  are  just  what  are  needed  to  make  men  efficient 
coworkers  with  Christ — furnishing  them  all-powerful 
motives,  and  lifting  them  up  to  the  sublimest  heights 
of  their  possibilities  of  effort  and  achievement  ? 

And  if  this  be  so,  it  can  not  but  be  reasonably  clear 
that  nothing  but  the  renewed  and  powerful  preaching 
of  these  doctrines  can  remedy  the  defects  in  the  type 
of  piety  too  largely  prevailing  in  the  Church  and 
hindering  its  efficiency — the  want  of  singleness  of  aim; 
of  a  just  measure  of  consecration;  of  self-denial  for 
Christ;  of  Scriptural  faith;  of  earnestness  of  life;  of 
a  sense  of  individual  responsibility  to  the  Master. 
Nothing  else  can  be  expected  to  revolutionize  the  so- 
called  ethics  of  the  age,  and  lead  to  the  substitution 
of  Christian  ethics  for  a  heathen  and  brutish — putting 
in  the  place  of  baptized  selfishness  and  greed  the  law 
of  self-sacrifice  and  devotion  to  Christ. 

It  follows,  therefore,  from  the  very  ends  con- 
templated by  the  Gospel,  that  the  needs  of  this  age, 
2  Doct  •  ethe  ^^  ^^^  from  calling  for  an  abandonment  of 

Special  Re-      doctrinal  teaching  and  preaching,  impera- 

quirement.  tively  demand  a  powerful  revival  of  such 
teaching  and  preaching.  There  are  vastly  greater 
things  waiting  for  accomplishment  by  the  Christian 
Church  in  this  age  than  in  any  preceding  age,  and,  as 
surely  as  God  lives  and  his  Word  is  true,  they  can  not 
be  compassed  in  any  selfish  and  lazy  way,  nor  by  any 
ignorant  and  half-hearted  work. 

There  are  the  multitudes  to  be  saved.  There  is 
need  that  the  Church  and  the  world  should  be  roused 


THE    PREACHERS   MESSAGE.  1 27 

and  stirred,  as  in  the  **  Great  Awakening"  of  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  ago,  only  on  a  vastly  wider  scale  and 
to  profounder  depths.  The  preaching  of  Edwards, 
Whitefield,  and  their  colaborers  of  that  day,  was  the 
preaching  of  doctrine  in  its  powerful,  practical  bear- 
ings, and  that  whether  men  would  hear  or  whether 
they  would  forbear.  God,  in  his  being  and  attributes; 
his  absolute  sovereignty  in  salvation;  his  **just 
liberty  with  regard  to  answering  the  prayers  or 
succeeding  the  pains  of  mere  natural  men,  continuing 
such  ";  the  helplessness  and  hopelessness  of  **  sinners 
in  the  hands  of  an  angry  God  ";  justification  by  faith 
alone;  the  necessity  for  the  new  birth  or  of  a  trans- 
formation of  nature  by  the  Spirit  of  God — all  these, 
and  the  whole  range  of  rousing  and  quickening  doc- 
trine, were  burned  into  the  souls  of  the  men  of  that 
age.  The  fruits  were  seen  in  a  revolution  in  life,  indi- 
vidual, domestic,  and  social;  in  the  organizations  for 
pushing  the  work  of  missions;  and  in  the  vastly 
enlarged  sphere  and  activity  of  the  Church.  Who  will 
say  that  there  is  not  greater  need  to-day?  Who  will 
show  us  any  other  and  better  way  ? 

With  the  whole  world  waiting  for  the  Gospel,  and 
Christ  calling  his  followers  to  the  task  of  giving  it  to 
all,  the  Christian  worker  must  be  taught,  j^-^e  Preacher's 
in  the  light  of  God's  Word,  just  what  the     Duty  in  the 
world  needs  and  God  requires,  and  how         Crisis, 
the  needs  and  requirements  are  to  be  met.     He  will 
find  the  requisite  light  in  the  doctrines  of  the  Divine 
Word.       He    may   find    help    toward    the    light,    and 
impulse  to  a  better  life,  in  works  like  Fish's  Primi- 
tive Piety  Revived,   which    had    such   influence   in  the 
revival  of  a  third  of  a  century  ago;  but  they  will  help 
him   chiefly   by   leading    him   back    to   the    essential 


128     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

Christian  doctrines  of  the  Word.  The  work  has 
become  so  much  broader  that  the  pressing  home  of 
the  doctrines  must  be  all  the  mightier  and  more  per- 
sistent, if  a  life  powerful  enough  to  meet  the  needs  of 
the  age  is  to  be  the  result.  The  hosts  of  evil  are  so 
marshaled  and  panoplied  that  only  a  truer  and 
stronger  presentation  of  vital  Christian  doctrine 
can  gird  the  Church  with  the  power  to  accomplish 
their  overthrow.  The  Christian  may  find  some  of 
the  facts  concerning  the  evil  with  which  he  is  to  cope, 
in  such  works  as  Strong's  Our  Country,  or  Pierson's 
Crisis  of  Missions;  he  may  find  the  defects  of  the 
Christianity  of  the  age  set  forth  in  such  works  as 
Fish's  Primitive  Piety  Revived,  and  the  needs  of  the 
ministry  in  Horatius  Bonar's  Words  to  the  Winners 
of  Souls ;  but  the  needed  power  must  come  out  of 
the  practical  doctrines  of  the  Christian  revelation. 

In  fine,  nothing  short  of  the  message  of  the 
preacher,  as  given  him  by  Christ  himself, — the  Gospel 
as  a  regenerating  and  saving  power, — embracing  all  the 
essential  factors  and  truths  already  noted  in  sketch- 
ing that  message,  and  presented  to  men  as  rational 
and  religious  beings,  in  the  form  of  rational  instruc- 
tion, /.  <?. ,  as  doctrine,  in  its  rational  relations  and  con- 
nections, /.  e.,  in  coherent  doctrinal  system,  can  meet 
the  needs  of  the  present  hour.  A  rational  spiritual 
life  can  not  be  developed  in  an  irrational  way,  nor  by 
an  irrational  method.  The  preacher  must  press  home 
his  message  with  the  tongue  of  fire — until  God  and  the 
unseen  world,  the  lost  soul  and  its  condemnation  to 
everlasting  wo,  Christ  and  his  redemption,  the  judg- 
ment and  eternity,  become  living  realities,  and  the 
theology  of  the  Church  a  living  theology — if  the 
coming  of  Christ's  Kingdom  is  to  be  hastened.     He 


THE    PREACHER  S   MESSAGE.  I29 

needs  to  lift  up  the  standard  of  the  cross  anew,  and 
to  rally  the  Church  around  it  for  the  conquest  of  the 
world  for  Christ,  and  to  proclaim  his  message  to  that 
Church,  as  an  official  instructor,  with  an  energy  born 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  With  a  minister  in  the  lead  bear- 
ing such  a  message,  girded  with  divine  power,  with 
a  single  aim  for  Christ,  a  complete  consecration  to 
him,  entire  self-sacrifice  for  his  cause,  absolute  faith 
in  him  as  Savior  and  Lord,  and  a  holy  earnestness  in 
his  service;  with  a  Church  understanding  its  mission 
for  the  world,  and  inspired  with  such  principles  and 
such  self-sacrifice  in  the  Master's  service — the  require- 
ment which  the  Great  Commission  makes  of  the 
preacher  and  the  Church,  for  the  immediate  evangeliza- 
tion of  all  the  world,  is  far  within  the  possibilities  of 
accomplishment  for  the  present  generation. 

But  if  the  possible  is  to  become  the  actual,  the 
preacher  will  need,  in  bearing  his  message  and  rousing 
men,  to  give  supreme  heed  and  supreme  emphasis  to 
God's  manifest  call  for  the  immediate  evangelization 
of  the  world,  and  to  press  that  call  upon  the  Church, 
with  all  the  energy  and  enthusiasm  that  its  paramount 
importance  can  inspire,  with  all  the  solemnity  he  can 
draw  from  the  consciousness  of  his  own  overwhelming 
responsibility,  with  all  the  weight  and  authority  of  the 
divine  command  of  Christ,  and  with  all  the  fiery 
earnestness  that  can  blaze  forth  from  a  tongue  touched 
and  kindled  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    PREACHER   AND    HIS    FURNISHING. 

Having  such  a  commission  and  such  a  message  for 
mankind,  the  question  naturally  arises  :  What  manner 
of  man  should  the  preacher  be,  and  what  furnishing 
will  best  fit  him  for  the  special  work  of  this  genera- 
tion ?     We  answer  : 

He  needs  to  be  a  man  who  has  complete  mastery  of  him- 
self, of  the  situation,  and  of  his  Bible  message. 

This   is   an   age    of   Sphinx    riddles,    of   which   the 

Gospel    furnishes    the    only    possible   solution.       The 

«,.     .„.,„      modern  Sphinx — our  boasted  and  boast- 
Sphmx Riddles.  ^       .    .,.  •  ,     .  ,, 

ful  material  civilization,  with  its  godless 

principles  and  equally  godless  practise — ^^is  plying  her 
vocation  and  working  her  destruction  among  us,  on  a 
scale  far  grander  than  Greek  ever  imagined.  Her  rid- 
dles are  :  the  political  economy  riddle — how  to  prevent 
the  destruction  and  demoralization  resulting  from  the 
frequent  alternation  of  inflation  and  prostration  in  the 
national  industries;  the  social  riddle — how  to  elimi- 
nate the  caste  system  generated  by  the  separation  of 
labor  and  capital;  the  political  riddle — how  to  get  rid 
of  demagogism  and  official  corruption;  the  scientific 
riddle — how  to  stay  the  force  of  the  materialism  ''that 
is  sapping  the  genius  and  spiritual  aspirations  of  many 
of  our  best  minds,  and  which  shows  its  disastrous 
effects  even  in  the  sacred  desk."     And  we  may  rest 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  I3I 

assured  that  this  modern  Sphinx  will  not  fail  to  de- 
stroy— as  did  the  ancient  Sphinx,  in  the  days  of 
CEdipus — those  who  can  not  answer  her  riddles. 

But  the  riddle  of  riddles  is  the  one  propounded  to 
the  Church  of  this  age,  the  one  pressing  especially 
upon  the  ministry,  and  perhaps  most  of  all  upon  the 
men  who  are  to-day  making  their  way  into  the  min- 
istry— the  Sphinx  riddle  of  religion:  how  to  bring  the 
ministry  up  to  the  extraordinary  demands  of  these 
times,  and  give  it  larger  measure  of  power,  as  God's 
agency,  through  the  Gospel,  for  regenerating  and 
purifying  society  and  saving  the  world.  That  is  the 
riddle  pressing  upon  us  to-day,  and  destruction — indus- 
trial, social,  political,  moral,  and  spiritual — will  be  the 
inevitable  penalty  of  failure  to  solve  it  speedily,  cor- 
rectly, and  completely. 

Seven  centuries  and  a  half  before  the  coming  of 
Christ,  in  the  year  that  Rome  was  founded,  the 
prophet  Isaiah  had  his  wonderful  vision  of  Jehovah  in 
the  Temple,  as  recorded  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  his 
prophecies.  It  was  then  that  the  prophet  was  called 
and  set  apart  by  God — amid  surroundings  at  once 
magnificent  and  awful — to  meet  a  great  crisis  in  the 
history  of  God's  chosen  people.  That  call  and  crisis 
suggest  the  crisis  that  is  upon  us  in  this  day,  and  the 
preparation  of  the  prophet  for  his  work  suggests  the 
preparation  that  the  preacher  needs,  if  he  is  to  meet 
successfully  the  demands  of  the  present  crisis. 

It  is  difficult  to  present  the  real  state  of  the  case 
clearly,  so  as  to  enforce  adequately  the  preacher's 
duty,  and  yet  escape  the  danger  of  being  misunder- 
stood. We  hear  much  of  the  decline  of  the  power  of 
the  Church,  Has  there  been  such  a  decline  ?  We 
hear  equally  often  of  the  progress  and  requirements  of 


132      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE   MINISTRY. 

this  age  of  culture.  Has  there  been  such  progress  as 
to  outstrip  the  Gospel  ?  It  is  not  necessary  to  decide 
whether  either,  or  neither,  or  both,  of  these  things  be 
true.  However  it  may  have  arisen,  he  must  be  blind 
who  does  not  see  that  there  is  certainly  a  tremendous 
gap  between  the  power  and  work  of  the  ministry  and 
the  present  demand  of  God,  in  his  providence,  for  the 
immediate  giving  of  the  Gospel  to  all  the  world. 
Comparing  this  extraordinary  providential  call  with 
what  we  are  accomplishing,  it  becomes  manifest  that 
the  Church  is  nowhere  doing  all  that  needs  to  be  done. 
Is  not  the  insufficiency  of  the  power  and  work  for  the 
needs  only  too  obvious  ? 

But,  taking  the  facts  as  they  appear,  is  this  condi- 
tion of  things  inevitable  and  irremediable  ?  Or  is 
there  a  cause  that  may  be  pointed  out  and  a  remedy 
that  may  be  applied  :  a  cause  which  it  is  the  preacher's 
first  duty  to  understand  and  appreciate;  and  a  remedy 
which  it  is  his  special  mission  to  apply  ? 

The  fact  presupposes  and  proves  a  cause.  That  a 
remedy  may  be  found  is  the  belief  of  all  who  are  not 
pessimists.  There  is  need  to  point  out  the  cause  and 
the  remedy,  and  to  show  what  is  the  present  duty  of 
the  ministry  in  the  premises.  In  doing  this,  some 
preliminary  observations,  touching  the  characteristics 
of  the  age,  as  affecting  the  world,  the  Church,  and  the 
minister  himself,  will  bring  us  upon  the  profitable  con- 
sideration of  the  kind  of  preacher  and  the  character  of 
the  furnishing  called  for. 


THE   PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING.  I33 

SECTION   FIRST. 
The  Cduse  of  the  Present  Inadequacy  of  the  Ministry. 

The  cause  of  the  present  inadequacy  of  the  ministry 
to  the  work  to  be  done  is  doubtless  to  be  found  in  the 
materialistic  and  secular  spirit  of  the  age,  which  is  at 
once  most  powerful  in  resisting  the  influence  of  the 
Church  and  most  dangerous  and  harmful  in  molding 
the  Church  and  the  ministry. 

**  Because  ye  are  not  of  the  world,  .  .  .  there- 
fore the  world  hateth  you," — so  taught  the  Master.* 
There  is  an  essential  and  eternal  hostility  between  the 
spirit  of  worldliness  and  the  spirit  of  Christ.  An  age 
in  which  the  world  wields  the  Church  influence  is  an 
age  of  evil.  An  age  in  which  the  Church  and  ministry 
are  either  in  accord  with  the  world  or  molded  by  it 
must  be  an  age  of  religious  degeneracy  and  godless- 
ness  and  spiritual  inefficiency — and  these  always  indi- 
cate the  highroad  to  destruction. 

I.  An  Age  of  Intense  Secularism. 

No  preacher  can  fail  to  be  made  aware  of  the  fact 
that  secularism,  which  is,  literally,  this-world-ism,  is 
to-day  assuredly  at  the  front.  Note  that  we  are  not 
emphasizing  here  the  practical  tendencies  and  social 
customs  that  grow  out  of  the  secular  spirit,  and  that 
have  revolutionized  the  preaching  and  pastoral  work; 
but  the  intellectual  tendencies,  the  spirit  of  the  age, 
the  Zeitgeist^  that  controls  and  molds  man,  both  in  the 
pulpit  and  out  of  it. 

*  John  XV.  19. 


134      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

The  age,  through  the  influence  of  Mill  and  Darwin 
and  Spencer  and  Huxley,  and  such  as  they,  has  come 

Materialistic  largely  under  control  of  a  materialistic 
Scientism.  scientism,  tending  toward  atomism,  and 
on  the  verge  of  culminating  in  organized  socialistic 
secularism. 

What  is  here  objected  to  is  not  science,  but  the  vast 
mass  of  superficial  imagination,  assumption,  and  asser- 
tion, that  is  decked  out  in  imposing  verbiage  and 
palmed  off  upon  men  as  science.  No  one  is  disposed 
to  ignore  or  underrate  the  great  achievements  of 
genuine  science  in  this  age.  As  Christians  we  are 
thankful  for  them.  They  are  our  heritage.  All  true 
science  is  for  us.  Every  great  scientist  of  the  land 
will  be  found  on  the  side  of  God  and  Christianity — 
President  Hitchcock,  Professors  Silliman,  Agassiz, 
Henry,  Guyot,  Dana,  Dawson — all  along  the  line. 
The  mighty  thinkers  and  philosophers  will  be  found  in 
the  same  ranks — Professors  Tayler  Lewis  and  Bowen, 
and  Presidents  Woolsey,  McCosh,  Porter,  Anderson — 
all  along  the  line  again.  It  is  much  the  same  across 
the  water.  But  the  strange  thing  about  it  all  is  that 
a  superficial  scientism  has  the  ear  of  the  public,  rather 
than  this  profound  science;  that  a  shallow  and  baseless 
atomism  molds  society,  rather  than  a  deep  and  well- 
founded  theism. 

Preachers  are  especially  familiar  with  the  "prog- 
ress" of  **  advanced  science,"  from  the  old-fashioned 
Bible  notion  of  a  personal,  spiritual  God,  infinite, 
eternal,  and  unchangeable  in  his  being  and  attributes, 
to  the  new  God  of  the  atomist;  which  is  neither  per- 
sonal nor  spiritual,  which  is  without  either  quantita- 
tive or  qualitative  attributes,  and  which  is  changeable 
at  the  will  of  every  wiseacre.     The  noise  of  it  has 


THE   PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING.  I35 

gone  out  into  all  the  world.  Popular  Science  maga- 
zines and  Popular  Science  series  have  borne  the  new 
doctrine  everywhere,  asserting  its  truth  with  a  bold- 
ness and  impudence  equaled  only  by  its  shallowness 
and  want  of  scientific  basis.  It  is  all  around  us,  in  the 
atmosphere,  so  that  men  take  it  in  at  every  breath. 

The  men  who  advocate  these  new  views  arrogate  to 
themselves  the  right  of  eminent  domain  in  the  region 
of  science;  and  tho  the  grand  men  of  science  all 
repudiate  their  doctrines,  yet  so  confident  has  been 
the  tone  of  the  quasi-scientists  that  they  have  made 
the  world  abjure  faith  in  God  and  then  receive  their 
teachings  on  faith,  and  so  are  claiming  to  have  it  all 
their  own  way. 

The  natural  result  is  the  reign  of  a  shallow  and 
boastful  egotism,  that  does  not  hesitate  to  put  forward 
the  wildest  and  most  irrational  specula-  shallow 
tions  as  truths  fit  to  take  the  place  of  PMlosophy. 
the  grand  and  eternal  verities  of  the  Word  of  God. 
**  There  is  no  God. "  **  Or,  if  there  be  a  God,  he  must 
forever  remain  unknown  and  unknowable."  **0r, 
if  he  can  be  known,  it  is  only  as  an  impersonal,  blind 
force."  Atheism,  pantheism,  know-nothingism,  pes- 
simism, have  flooded  the  world.  The  same  spirit  of 
egotism  and  shallowness  and  dogmatism  that  marked 
their  original  authors  and  advocates  has  been  repro- 
duced in  the  hosts  outside  the  Church,  and  drifting 
farther  and  farther  away  from  it,  that  need  to  be 
reached  by  the  ministry  of  this  age  if  Christianity  is 
to  prevail. 

The  world  is  filled  with  doubt  and  neglect,  or  with 
despair  and  hatred,  of  God  and  religion,  of  morality 
and  immortality.  This  blighting  materialism  and 
atheism   have    not   only   made   logical  wreck   of   the 


136    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

world's  thinking,  but  are  making  wreck  of  all  the 
highest  feelings,  grandest  motives,  and  sublimest  pos- 
sibilities to  which  Christianity  would  exalt  humanity. 
The  present,  the  fleeting,  the  tangible,  is  all  that  is 
left  to  man,  the  blind  infant  of  father  Chance  and 
mother  Matter  and  Must-be.  The  invisible  and  eternal 
personal  God  has  been  pushed  from  his  throne  because, 
forsooth,  no  man  has  seen  nor  can  see  him,  and  the 
atom  which  no  man  hath  seen  nor  can  see,  and  to 
whose  existence  no  one  can  hold  with  any  clear  scien- 
tific reason,  has  been  enthroned  in  his  place  ;  and 
Professor  Clifford  even  proceeded  so  far  as  to  replace 
his  worship  by  **  cosmic  emotion"  ! 

All  this  has  made  the  world  a  hard  world  to  reach 
with  the  Gospel.  It  is  not  inclined  to  listen  to  what 
the  messenger  of  God  has  to  say  from  the  pulpit.  It 
has  drifted  away  from  the  Church.  It  is  scarcely  more 
inclined  to  listen  to  what  he  may  have  to  say  outside 
of  the  pulpit,  for  it  confidently  assumes,  on  the  worst 
of  hearsay,  that  the  Bible  is  an  obsolete  book,  and  that 
Christianity  has  nothing  in  it  really  worthy  the  belief 
of  reasonable  men,  and  especially  of  the  men  of  this 
highly  educated  and  intelligent  age!  In  truth,  in  its 
opinion,  the  scientific  Zeitgeist  has  breathed  upon  the 
religion  of  Christ  and  straightway  resolved  it  into 
shadowy,  unsubstantial,  mythical  elements  and  dissi- 
pated it  forever  ! 

Nor  is  this  the  worst.  It  is  impossible  to  escape  the 
conviction  that  this  flood  of  materialistic  atheism  has 
Influence  upon    come   in   upon   the  Church,    and  is  per- 

the  Church,  ceptibly  molding  and  modifying  it  in 
creed  and  practise.  Almost  everywhere  one  can  see  a 
growing  want  of  faith  in  the  grand  doctrines  of  the 
Bible.     There  is  a  tendency  to   estimate  all   things 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  137 

invisible  and  spiritual  according  to  the  standard  of 
this  quasi-scientific  atheism.  We  hear  science  and  art 
and  literature,  physiology  and  biology,  cried  up,  and 
psychology  and  metaphysics,  philosophy  and  theology, 
cried  down.  In  many  quarters  there  is  a  manifest 
weakening  in  the  hold  of  even  the  great  essential  doc- 
trines, upon  laymen  and  ministers,  upon  churches  and 
conferences  and  councils.  Dogmas  and  creeds  are  at 
a  discount  in  too  many  pulpits,  in  too  many  pews,  in 
too  much  of  the  literature  of  the  Church.  Who  could 
not  point  to  instances  illustrating  the  giving  way  of 
the  old-fashioned,  permanent,  every-day  religion  of 
principle,  before  the  new-fashioned,  intermittent,  mid- 
winter religion  of  feeling  and  excitement?  And  here 
is  evidently  a  new  element  of  difficulty  in  the  work  of 
the  minister  of  the  present  period. 

But  even  this  is  not  the  worst.  **Like  priest  like 
people"  was  the  old  half-truth.  **Like  people  like 
priest "  is  the  new  complementary  half-truth  of  this 
age.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  these  evil  tendencies  have 
had  large  influence  in  molding  the  ministry  ?  It  is 
doubtful  if  any  of  us  have  wholly  escaped  the  baleful 
influence  of  this  rationalism  and  materialism. 

We  recognize  in  ourselves,  in  spite  of  ourselves,  a 
prevailing  want  of  faith  in  the  reality  of  God  and 
heaven  and  hell,  of  the  judgment  and  eternity.  The 
veil  of  the  seen  hides  from  our  eyes  the  glory  of  the 
unseen.  Recall  how  an  overwhelming  sense  of  the  in- 
visible made  Luther  hurl  his  inkstand  at  the  devil; 
and  then  imagine  such  a  sense  of  reality  taking  posses- 
sion of  some  learned  and  eminent  preacher  at  the 
present  day  !  With  a  scientific  curl  of  the  lip  we  com- 
placently say  :  "  Luther  lived  in  an  age  of  darkness  !  " 
Imagine  such  a  sense  of  the  worth  of  souls  as  made 


138     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

Paul  weep  night  and  day  for  three  years,  over  the 
perishing  sinners  at  Ephesus,  taking  possession  of 
some  of  our  ministers  in  New  York  or  Chicago  !  **  Ah, 
well!"  we  would  be  ready  to  say,  "he  is  a  weak 
brother,  doubtless  a  little  beside  himself!"  Imagine 
such  a  sense  of  the  power  of  prayer  as  moved  the  souls 
of  martyrs  and  confessors,  taking  possession  of  one  of 
ourselves  in  this  age  of  the  supremacy  of  **  things 
seen"!  Why,  the  rest  of  us  would  think  him  insane! 
Who  does  not  feel  that  the  faith  and  fire  with  which 
Christ  and  the  Apostles  inspired  the  first  believers,  the 
faith  and  fire  that  were  rekindled  in  the  Reformation 
and  in  the  later  times  under  Whitefield  and  the  Wes- 
leys,  have  well-nigh  gone  out  of  us  under  the  blight- 
ing influence  of  this  modern  materialism  ? 

But  it  is  to  be  feared  that  even  this  is  not  the  worst. 
The  spirit  of  secularism  has  followed  the  skepticism 
of  secularism  into  the  Church.  The  same  standards 
for  the  measurement  of  the  man  are  too  often  applied 
there.     There  is  a  wide-reaching  tendency  to  break 

Dr.  Charles  with  the  poor  and  ignorant.  Several 
Hodge's  View,  yg^^s  before  his  death,  Dr.  Charles 
Hodge  wrote  in  a  careful  paper  on  "Preaching  the 
Gospel  to  the  Poor":* 

"  It  is  with  great  reluctance  that  we  are  constrained  to  acknowl- 
edge that  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  this  country  is  not  the  Church 
for  the  poor.  .  .  We,  as  a  church,  are  not  doing,  and  never  have 
done,  what  we  were  bound  to  do  in  order  to  secure  the  preaching  of 
the  Gospel  to  the  poor." 

And  what  if  it  be  true,  as  Dr.  Hodge  says,  that  "the 
Church  which  fails  to  bring  the  Gospel  to  bear  upon 
the  poor,  fails  in  its  duty  to  Christ"?     What  if  it  be 

*  Princeton  Review,  January,  1871,  p.  86. 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING.  I39 

true  that  '*it  refuses  or  neglects  to  do  what  he  has 
specially  commanded;  and  sooner  or  later  its  candle- 
stick will  be  removed  out  of  its  place  "  ?  And  what 
if  all  the  Church  so  fail,  and  the  poor  drift  away  to 
perdition  ? 

All  unconsciously  to  themselves,  some  of  the  b'est 
men  in  the  Church  are  influenced  by  this  spirit  of  caste. 
The  writer  well  remembers  once  hearing  an  officer  in 
his  church — and  a  good  man  he  was,  too — complaining 
of  the  sexton:  '* He  is  unfit  for  his  office.  He  doesn't 
know  broadcloth."  The  sexton  had  seated  a  plain 
person  in  an  eligible  pew  in  the  center  of  the  church. 
Now,  that  man  never  for  one  moment  dreamed  that 
he  was  manifesting  the  same  spirit  against  which  the 
Apostle  James  brings  that  most  terrible  charge  in  his 
Epistle,  when  he  writes  of  the  man  with  the  gold  ring 
and  the  goodly  apparel!  *  The  consequences  of  all  this 
may  be  seen  in  the  'Mapsed  masses,"  or  the  immense 
non-church-going  multitude,  and  in  the  growing  spirit 
of  communism  and  hostility  to  religion  among  the 
poor  and  debased. 

Nor  will  it  escape  any  observing  man  that  there  is  a 
tendency  in  the  Church  to  apply  the  worldly  standard, 
so  far  as  may  be,  in  the  choice  of  its  ministry  and  in 
its  forms  of  worship.  It  is  assumed  that  in  this  age, 
if  men  are  to  go  to  church  on  the  Sabbath,  they  must 
be  entertained,  and  must  get  the  worth  of  their  money 
as  the  world  judges.  We  are  in  danger  of  having 
interesting  "entertainment"  set  above  ''spiritual 
religion";  ''eloquence,"  above  *' soul-saving  ";  "cul- 
ture," above  "Christ." 

Could  the  ministry  possibly  escape  being  molded  by 
these  forces  of  secularism  ?     Have  not  questions  of 

*  James  ii.  1-9. 


I40      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL   TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

position  and  salary  been  made  far  more  prominent 
than  is  warranted  by  the  Word  of  God  ?  Has  not  the 
Christ-idea  of  preaching  the  Gospel  to  the  poor,  and 
lifting  up  the  low  and  debased,  largely  given  way  to 
the  new-fashioned  theory  that  men  must  be  reached 
from  above  down,  so  that  the  preaching  must  be  pri- 
marily for  the  refined  and  cultivated  if  we  would  reach 
and  influence  the  masses?  Are  there  not  terrible 
forces  of  evil  at  work  tending  to  transform  the  man 
who,  as  God's  messenger,  should  be  on  fire  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  into  the  lion  of  social  occasions,  the  man  of 
elegant  manners,  attainments,  and  leisure  ?  Do  not 
our  own  hearts  assure  us  that  few,  if  any,  of  us  have 
escaped  without  some  taint  of  secularism  ? 


II.  An  Age  of  Socialistic  Secularism. 

But  the  tide  of  secularism,  that  in  this  age  threatens 

to    leave   helpless   or   to    sweep   away   preacher   and 

The  New       Church  alike,  is  not  merely  that  of  the 

Secularism,  old-fashioned  secularism,  based  upon 
disbeliefs  but  that  of  the  new  secularism  that  takes  on 
the  sociological  form  and  bases  itself  on  the  discontent 
and  z/z/r^j/ abroad  among  men  the  world  over — the  tide 
of  socialistic  secularism. 

The  extreme  positive  pole  of  churchism  may  be  the 
other-worldliness,  at  which  George  Eliot  sneers;  the 
extreme  negative  pole  of  materialism  is  the  this- 
worldliness,  that  has  come  in  upon  Christendom  like  a 
vast  electric  wave,  infolding  and  enswathing  every- 
thing. Of  this  new  phase,  Mr.  Walter  Walsh  writes 
ably,  in  an  article  in  the  Contejnporary  Review ^  for 
January,  1895.     He  says  : 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  I4I 

**  The  old  secularism  is  dead.  Peripatetic  lecturers  may  still,  in 
dingy  halls  and  before  dingier  audiences,  galvanize  the  thing  into 
some  convulsive  mimicry  of  life.  But  Higher  Criticism  and  the  New 
Theology  have  taken  the  wind  out  of  the  sails  of  Ingersoll  and  Foote, 
while  a  thousand  pulpits  are  engaged  in  showing  that  faith  and 
worship  may  exist  and  flourish  anew  on  the  '  fairy  tales  of  science  and 
the  long  results  of  time.' 

"  The  new  secularism  comes  fifty  years  after  the  old  and,  like  it,  is 
the  child  of  the  age.  Fifty  years  ago  the  splendid  audacities  of 
physical  science  dazzled  the  eye  of  faith,  and  ever  since  a  few  men 
have  lived  who  could  not  see  heaven  or  the  sun.  To-day,  however,  it 
is  the  sociological  question  that  engages  the  deepest  attention  and 
attracts  the  fondest  hopes,  and  it  is  from  this  the  new  secularism 
springs.  The  likeness  and  the  difference  between  the  old  and  the 
new  are  apparent  at  a  glance.  Both  concern  themselves  primarily 
with  physical  conditions, — a  planet,  a  human  body, — but  the  latter 
lends  itself  more  freely  to  the  world  of  sentiment  and  aspiration.  To 
what  extent  the  new  is  a  development  of  the  old  is  a  question  which 
would  lead  us  too  far  afield.  But  assuredly  as  the  older  secularism 
claimed  to  be  a  gospel  for  the  whole  man,  physically  considered,  it 
begins  to  find  that  it  can  only  fulfil  its  prophecy  through  modern 
socialistic  materialism.  Man  is  not  all  brain,  and  the  bald  rationalism 
of  the  Hall  of  Science  fails  before  the  positive  demands  of  modern 
humanitarianism.  The  age  is  impatient  of  mere  negations.  It  has 
discovered  that  man  has  a  back  and  a  belly  as  well  as  a  brain,  and 
the  question  how  to  clothe  the  one  and  fill  the  other  has  eclipsed 
public  interest  in  Cain's  wife  and  the  mistakes  of  Moses." 

The  older  secularism  threatened  the  Church  merely; 
the  new  menaces  the  existence  of  the  State  also.  It 
links  itself  with  the  popular  reform  movement,  enters 
into  the  domain  of  practical  politics  and  seeks  to  con- 
trol it,  and  ultimately  attempts  to  enlist  religion  on 
the  side  of  revolution. 

"  It  tries  to  float  the  political  economy  of  Marx  upon  the  religious 
sentiment  of  Mazzini,  and  with  this  twofold  appeal  to  the  lower  and 
the  higher  moves  forward  to  the  capture  of  the  modern  world."* 

*  Contemporary  Review,  January,  1895,  p.  118. 


142       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

This  new  form  of  secularism  is  the  child  of  the 
times,  as  was  the  old — the  natural  evolution  from  the 
materialistic  scientism  of  the  day. 

It  has  its  wide-spread  manifestations  outside  the 
Church,  everywhere  at  bottom  and  essentially  antag- 
Antagonistic  to  onistic  to  the  principles,  methods,  and 
Christianity,  spirit  of  Christianity.  Christianity,  as 
has  already  been  seen,  assumes  the  absolute  obligation 
of  man  to  supreme  devotion  to  God,  in  all  the  rela- 
tions of  life,  and  the  moral  disorder  of  man's  nature, 
called  in  theological  phrase  original  sift;  and  insists 
upon  regeneration  as  the  only  remedy  for  the  evil  con- 
dition of  mankind.  With  the  new  secularism,  God 
having  been  reduced  to  the  almighty  atom,  or  to  a 
minimum,  or  eliminated  from  the  universe,  he  may  be 
practically  left  out  of  the  account.  The  present  life, 
on  its  material  side,  in  the  supreme  importance 
assigned  to  it,  crowds  out  the  higher  life,  and  immor- 
tality becomes  an  imagination,  or  a  guess,  or  at  best  a 
dim  hope  or  irrational  wish.  It  makes  evil  the  result  of 
condition  or  environment,  and  ignores  its  moral  taint 
and  hereditary  sweep;  and  it  proposes  its  removal, 
not  by  regeneration  or  a  change  of  nature,  but  by 
reformation,  or  a  change  of  condition,  or  by  modi- 
fication of  environment.  Christianity  regards  char- 
acter as  the  supreme  thing,  and  starts  its  work,  in 
reforming  and  elevating,  by  making  character  in  the 
new  birth  by  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  as  the 
only  basis  and  spring  of  reform  in  the  present  condi- 
tion of  man;  the  new  secularism,  reversing  the  order 
of  things,  starts  with  condition  and  attempts  to 
struggle  back  to  improved  character.  The  new  teach- 
ing is  :  '*  Man  is  not  essentially  bad;  he  is  the  victim 
of  environment.     Give  him  plenty  to  eat  and  to  drink, 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING.  143 

and  he  will  be  all  right."  ''Treat  the  tramp  and  thief 
kindly,"  is  the  reasoning  of  the  good  French  rural 
bishop,  in  Les  Mts&ables  of  Victor  Hugo — the  reason- 
ing of  the  new  socialism,  the  skepticism  in  philosophy 
and  morality,  that  has  morally  wrecked  France — "and 
he  will  become  a  holy  man  and  will  steal  no  more." 
But  the  tramp  disappears  all  the  same,  despite  the 
reasoning,  and  the  bishop's  silver  candlesticks  dis- 
appear with  him  !  That  is  the  new  method,  by  which 
it  is  proposed  to  deal  with  a  world  made  up  of  such 
natures — they  are  to  be  made  over  morally  from  the 
outside,  through  the  skin  and  the  stomach  ! 

Christianity,  as  has  been  seen,  places  upon  man  the 
obligations  of  the  moral  law,  making  him  responsible 
to  God  for  all  his  conduct  toward  himself,  his  fellow- 
man,  and  the  Moral  Governor.  The  new  secularism 
practically  reduces  the  moral  law  to  the  customs  of 
society,  cuts  everything  loose  from  God,  and  devotes 
itself  to  what  it  terms  ''the  economic  laws  of  God," 
that  is,  to  the  socialistic  scheme  by  which  the  millen- 
nium of  plenty  for  all  men  to  eat  and  to  drink  is  to  be 
realized.  It  advocates  and  pushes  social  reforms  and 
political  reforms,  and  is  the  perennial  spring  of 
anarchism. 

Christianity  recognizes  man's  sin  as  the  source  of 
evil,  and  sends  forth  the  preacher  to  proclaim  themes- 
sage  of  salvation  :  as  law,  calling  to  repentance  and  a 
right  life  before  God  ;  and  as  Gospel,  promising  and 
furnishing  the  power  needed  to  make  over  man  in 
righteousness  and  holiness.  The  new  secularism  rec- 
ognizes the  facts — so  prominent  at  the  present  time — 
of  universal  discontent  and  unrest,  and,  looking  upon 
unequal  industrial,  social,  and  political  conditions  as 
the  cause  of  these,   it  sends  out  as  its  apostles  and 


144      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

canonized    saints    the    walking   delegate,    the   social 
reformer,   and    the    religious   agitator. 
Christ  commands  men  :  * 

"  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,  and 
all  these  [other  and  temporal]  things  shall  be  added  unto  you." 

The  secularist  apostle  reverses  the  order,  and  bids 
men  to  seek  the  other  things — food  and  drink  and 
clothing — first,  and  assures  them  that  then  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven,  which  is  after  all  only  the  kingdom 
of  this  world,  will  be  theirs  also. 

The  **  Labor  Church  "  is  the  beginning  of  the  crystal- 

The  lizing  of  the  new  secularism,  the  evolu- 

"  Labor  Church."  tion  from  it.     Writes  Mr.  Walter  Walsh:  * 

"  This  is  the  distinguishing  and  specific  mark  of  the  whole  move- 
ment. Looking  round  upon  the  waste  waters  of  the  modern  deluge 
for  some  landmark,  we  fix  upon  the  *  Labor  Church'  as  the  most 
prominent  and  the  most  expressive  sign  of  the  times.  The  '  Labor 
Church '  is  far  from  covering  the  whole  area  of  the  new  secularism. 
On  the  contrary,  it  numbers  but  a  few  hundreds  of  people,  scattered 
over  about  a  score  of  centers,  tho  it  claims  to  be  a  growing  move- 
ment. It  is  not  its  size,  but  its  significance  that  concerns  us.  It  is 
typical  of  much.  It  is  the  prominent  and  outstanding  feature  of  a 
wide-spread  materialism  ;  the  highest,  and  furthest,  and  clearest-de- 
fined guide-post  of  the  great  army  marching  forward  to  possess  the 
kingdom  of  this  world  ;  the  topmost  wave  of  the  vast  sea  of  social 
discontent  which  surges  forward  to  become  the  hope  and  the  fear 
of  a  new  century.  .  .  Every  appeal  of  historic  Christianity  is  re- 
versed by  the  new  Church  of  Socialism.  It  speaks,  not  about  sin, 
but  about  sociology  ;  not  of  penitence,  but  of  reform  ;  of  economics, 
but  not  of  faith  ;  it  aspires  to  satisfy  the  body  rather  than  the  soul, 
aims  at  goods  rather  than  goodness,  and  denounces  ill  conditions 
rather  than  vicious  inclinations.     Its  devil  is  not  evil  personified,  but 

*  Matthew  vi.  33. — "  The  New  Secularism,"  Contemporary  Review^ 
January,  1895,  pp.  121,  124. 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING.  145 

an  economic  specter  called  capitalism  ;  and  the  devil's  wife  is  not 
Sin,  as  Milton  thought,  but  competition.  No  reversal  could  be  more 
complete.  The  pendulum  has  swung  the  other  way  with  a  vengeance  ! " 

The  new  socialism  has  no  fatherhood  of  God  on 
which  to  base  a  brotherhood  of  man.  It  has  no  Bible 
and  no  divine  basis  on  which  to  rest.  It  cuts  loose 
from  the  great  human  and  religious  needs  and  faiths 
and  hopes  that  have  inspired,  sustained,  and  shaped 
history  in  all  the  ages,  and  demonstrates  itself  ephem- 
eral, a  thing  of  the  hour,  by  planting  itself  on  modern 
life  and  modern  necessities  merely.  It  furnishes  no 
hint  of  any  agency  for  the  remedy  or  the  moral  recon- 
struction that  the  existing  moral  disorder  has  been 
shown  to  make  imperative,  and  for  which  Christianity 
makes  such  ample  provision.  It  rules  out  with  equal 
imperiousness  the  Christian  triad,  faith,  hope,  and 
charity,  and  the  Pagan  triad,  the  true,  the  beautiful, 
and  the  good.  In  making  man  supreme  and  the  ser- 
vice of  man  the  summum  bonuni^  it  depresses,  or 
ignores,  or  denies  God.  In  exalting  the  social  and 
minor  moralities — generosity,  honesty,  courage,  com- 
raderie,  manliness,  and  the  like — it  minimizes,  or 
scouts,  or  repudiates  the  personal  and  Christian  vir- 
tues— faith,  patience,  meekness,  purity,  holiness,  and 
all  the  rest.  In  short,  it  is  the  embodiment,  the  incar- 
nation, the  completer  evolution,  of  materialism  and 
atomism  ;  and,  in  seeking  the  life  of  the  body  only,  it 
has  doomed  its  adherents  to  destruction  of  both  body 
and  soul. 

These  considerations  cast  light  upon  the  influences 
and  forces  that  are  shown,  in  the  course  of  this  discus- 
sion, to  be  at  work  in  the  Church,  in  revolutionizing 
and  disintegrating  Christian  doctrine  and  faith,  and  in 
cutting  the  nerve  of  Christian  effort. 


146     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

But  this  new  secularism  has  almost  as  varied  mani- 
festations within  the  Church  as  outside  of  it,  in  the 
Manifestations  P^^P^^  and  in  manifold  reform  move- 
in  the  Church,  ments.  It  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  turn- 
ing away  from  the  preaching  of  Bible  Christianity,  as 
a  divine  regenerating  and  saving  power,  to  the  preach- 
ing of  the  social  moralities  and  amenities.  It  brings 
tremendous  pressure  to  bear  upon  the  pulpit  through 
the  newspapers  and  magazines;  reporters  and  journal- 
ists being  absolutely  saturated  with  the  new  views. 
By  way  of  illustration,  one  takes  up  his  morning  paper, 
and  reads,  in  bold  head-lines  :  '*  Why  don't  young  men 
go  to  church  ?  "  Then  follows  the  reason,  that  ''out 
of  thirty  sermons  to  young  men,  fourteen  had  for  the 
text  the  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son."  Then  it  is 
added  : 

' '  Young  men  who  go  to  city  churches  habitually  are  not  of  the 
stuff  of  which  this  wicked  Scriptural  prodigal  was  made.  What  they 
want  of  a  minister  is,  not  doctrine,  but  direction  ;  not  exhortation  to 
prepare  for  a  successful  death,  but  inspiration  for  a  consistent  life. 
Only  a  few  clergymen  and  women  understand  how  hard  it  is  for  man 
to  be  good.  These  few,  however,  of  both  classes  exercise  great  and 
lasting  influence.  I  am  speaking  of  the  ordinary,  temperate,  indus- 
trious, self-respecting  young  man,  who  wants  to  lead  a  decent  life, 
make  as  much  money  as  he  can,  and  get  all  the  fun  out  of  both  which 
the  law  and  his  own  conscience  allow.  .  .  That's  why  such  men 
as  Robert  Collyer,  who  know  these  things,  talk  to  more  men  every 
Sunday  than  their  churches  can  comfortably  hold  [a  statement  con- 
trary to  fact]." 

All  of  which  the  reporter  brought,  not  from  his  own 
observation  as  he  professed  to  do,  but  from  the  col- 
umns of  a  cheap,  secular  magazine  ;  to  which  it  had 
just  as  manifestly  been  contributed  without  personal 
observation,  and  without  knowledge  of  either  the  young 
men  or  the  ministers  concerned. 


THE    PREACHER    AND   HIS   FURNISHING.  I47 

In  its  better  manifestation  it  has  crystallized,  in  this 
country,  in  the  new  doctrine  concerning  the  Kingdom 
of  God,  which  teaches,  that  ''competition  is  not  law 
but  anarchy,"  and  that  the  cure  of  all  the  present 
troubles  and  discontent  in  the  world  is  ^^^  Doctrine 
to  be  found  in  right  views  concerning  of*  the  King- 
property  and  in  its  right  use,  and  that  "°^°  ^°^* 
the  main  thing  in  the  preaching  of  the  Church  should 
be,  not  sin  and  salvation  by  the  atonement  wrought  by 
Christ,  in  the  old  sense,  but  self-sacrifice  for  man,  and 
the  social  influences  and  duties  that  have  to  do  with 
restoring  to  the  poor  the  kingdom  of  this  world  with 
abundance  of  its  meat  and  drink.  There  is  thus,  in 
the  Church  itself,  a  powerful  cooperative  influence  in 
aid  of  the  social  secularism  that  is  leavening  the  world 
outside  the  Church. 

III.     An  Age  of  Anarchism. 

The  materialism  and  secularism  have  naturally  cul- 
minated in  an  age  of  anarchism,  or  of  revolt  against  all 
authority  and  all  law,  human  and  divine.  Revolt  against 
The  Electric  Age  is  passing  into  the  Age  all  Authority, 
of  Anarchism.  As,  according  to  these  theories,  all 
so-called  authority  and  law  are  merely  the  expression 
of  the  will  of  the  stronger,  having  no  root  in  God  or 
in  the  nature  of  things  or  in  justice,  but  arising  out 
of  the  brute  instincts  of  self-preservation  and  repro- 
duction of  the  species,  and  intended  merely  for  the 
continuance  of  the  supremacy  of  the  strongest  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  what  reason  is  there  for  their 
continuance  ?  What  binding  power  have  they,  except 
the  law  of  the  strongest  ?  Are  they  not  at  once  un- 
necessary and  necessarily  evil  ?  Such  is  the  theory, 
and  such  are  the  conclusions  drawn  from  it.      The 


148    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

most  unfortunate  feature  of  the  situation  is  that  there 
is  so  much  in  the  character  of  existing  laws — especially 
of  the  laws  governing  economic  and  other  purely 
material  and  selfish  interests — to  give  coloring  of 
truth  and  logic  to  both  the  theory  and  the  inferences 
from  it.  But  however  it  has  come  about,  the  fact  is 
indisputable  that  anarchism — the  breaking  with  all 
authority,  law,  and  obligation — is  in  the  social  atmos- 
phere of  the  day,  and  must  be  reckoned  with. 

The  "bankruptcy  of  science,"  which  Carlyle  an- 
nounced, on  the  threshold  of  the  Mechanical  Era, 
almost  three  quarters  of  a  century  ago,  has  reached  its 
complete  results,  in  its  general  influence  on  literature, 
art,  and  life.  Materialistic  science,  mere  mechanism, 
in  the  full  consciousness  of  its  new  powers,  promised 
to  bring  success,  and  plenty,  and  comfort  to  all  men — 
in  short,  promised  to  regenerate  the  world.  Its 
triumphs  have  certainly  been  immense  and  amazing; 
but,  whatever  it  may  have  done  for  the  **  sovereign 
minority,"  it  has  done  nothing  of  what  it  promised  to 
do  for  the  great  majority.  Its  promise  to  reconstruct 
and  glorify  the  social  order,  on  a  basis  of  mechanism, 
instead  of  religious  faith,  loyalty,  and  individual  worth, 
has  proved  a  disastrous  and  dismal  failure,  resulting 
in  world-wide  discontent  and  unrest. 

As  an  able  writer  in  the  Quarterly  Review^  for 
January,  1894,  phrases  it,  ***  Science'  has  brought 
forth  anarchy;  and  anarchy  is  the  'reduction  to  the 
absurd' of  those  principles  on  which  its  reasoning  in 
the  province  of  the  supernatural  has  been  founded." 
The  same  writer,  following  the  lead  of  Max  Nordau's 
book  on  Degeneration^  shows  how  the  "  discontent  and 
sense  of  failure  in  modern  life "  have  transformed 
and  degraded   European   literature, — as    seen  in  the 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  149 

works  of  Swinburne,  Oscar  Wilde,  M.  Zola,  Tolstoi, 
Ibsen,  and  their  kind, — leading  it  to  break  with  all 
authority,  and  with  all  the  recognized  principles  and 
rules  of  art,  manners,  and  morals.  *  The  generalization 
might  have  been  carried  out  into  all  spheres  of  art  and 
life;  for  the  same  deleterious  influences  are  every- 
where pervasive  and  operative. 

Even  more  marked  have  been  the  results  of  anarch- 
ism, in  the  removal  of  the  old  restraints  upon  selfish- 
ness in  all  its  forms.  Unbridled  appetite  Unbridled 
and  passion,  unlimited  self-indulgence,  Selfishness, 
are  the  order  of  the  day.  Intemperance,  the  monster 
curse  of  the  age,  has  intrenched  itself  in  the  saloon 
system,  and  is  doing  its  utmost,  on  the  plea  of 
*' personal  liberty,"  to  transform  the  nations  of  the 
earth  into  nations  of  drunkards.  Licentiousness — 
while  by  the  pen  of  Tolstoi,  in  The  Kreutzer  Sonata^ 
condemning  the  institution  of  marriage  as  *'a  crime 
and  contrary  to  natural  law";  and,  in  the  great 
reviews,  denouncing  marriage  as  *'an  evil  with  which 
we  are  cursed^''  and  pleading  for  a  solution  of  ''the 
sexual  problem,"  by  a  legalized  system  of  "concubi- 
nage for  married  men";*  and  in  the  world's  legis- 
latures seeking  to  legalize  and  regulate  "the  social 
evil " — is  fast  intrenching  itself  everywhere,  destroy- 
ing the  foundations  of  the  home  by  its  subtle  insinua- 
tion, dishonoring  public  life  with  its  disgusting  and 
horrifying  exhibitions,  demoralizing  the  young  by  its 
fascinating  allurements  open  or  disguised,  and  disinte- 
grating society  itself  by  its  influences  of  corruption 
and  moral  death.     Self-indulgence  is  likewise  working 

*  Quarterly  Review,  January,  1894,  article  "  Anarchist  Litera- 
ture," p.  4. — "  The  Sexual  Problem,"  Westminster  Review ^  Febru- 
ary, 1895,  p.  171. 


150      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

itself  out,  in  the  rage  for  entertainment  and  amuse- 
ment, in  theater  and  social  function  and  every  other 
form,  especially  in  forms  made  questionable  or  dam- 
nable by  satire  upon  virtue  or  by  touch  or  even  broad 
smirch  of  licentiousness,  as  in  the  ''ballet"  and  the 
*Miving  picture  "  show,  and  apparently  hastening  on 
to  still  more  flagrant  and  immoral  manifestations, 
until  life,  already  with  vast  numbers  merely  a  play, 
threatens  to  become  a  **  dance  of  death."  The  picture 
presented  by  the  age  is  one  of  vast  wealth  used  in 
extravagant  outlay  for  selfish  enjoyment  and  show, 
and  contributing  to  little  else  than  the  sweeping  tide 
of  intemperance,  licentiousness,  and  moral  worthless- 
ness  and  ruin. 

Even  more  marked  is  the  development  of  anarchism, 
in  the  criminal  disregard,  so  widely  exhibited,  for  the 
feelings  and  rights  and  personality  of  others.  The 
rich,  in  the  enjoyment  of  unstinted  indulgence  in  the 
Christian  palace,  laugh  lightly  at,  or  think  not  at  all 
of,  the  starving  poor,  in  the  Christian  hovel  hard  by.. 
Selfishness  and  greed  have  organized  themselves  in 
giant  corporations  and  trusts,  that  are  simply  com- 
binations for  robbing  the  masses  of  mankind,  under 
guise  of  law  or  in  spite  of  law,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
few;  so  that  the  great  wealth  heaped  upon  us  by 
Providence  for  the  ends  of  the  Gospel  is  being  turned 
instead  into  a  means  of  oppression  and  into  a  curse. 
The  lawlessness  has  culminated   in  that  condition   of 

The  Age  of  things  that  marks  this  age  as  the  Age  of 
Murder.  Murder  in  all  Christendom.  The  aston- 
ishing disregard  of  that  most  sacred  possession,  human 
life — a  disregard  to  which  attention  is  now  being 
aroused — may  well  amaze  men.  All  who  are  interested 
in  the  welfare  of  humanity  will   do  well  to  consider 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING.  151 

thoughtfully  the  statistics  on  the  subject,  furnished 
by  Mr.  Henry  C.  Lea,  in  The  Forwn,  of  August,  1894. 
The  record  of  homicides  has  gone  on  swelling  in 
numbers,  until  the  annual  tale  in  Europe  has  reached 
15,000,  and  in  America  10,000, — in  the  United  States 
alone  averaging  from  3000  to  5000.  The  record  of 
20,000  to  25,000  murders  annually,  in  the  so-called 
Christian  nations — surpassing  the  death-roll  of  most  of 
the  great  decisive  battles  of  the  world,  and  rolling  up 
a  hundred  Waterloos  or  Gettysburgs  of  death  in  a 
century — is  assuredly  frightful  to  contemplate,  while 
horribly  emphasizing  the  age  as  the  Age  of  An- 
archism! 

And  what  of  the  task  of  the  preacher  in  reaching 
such  a  world  with  his  message  ?  What  of  the  hopeful- 
ness of  it?  What  of  the  message  he  is  ^he Preacher's 
sent  to  deliver  to  it  ? "  If  there  be  noth-  Task, 
ing  but  reform  forces;  If  there  be  no  divine,  regen- 
erating power  to  transform  men  and  remedy  the  exist- 
ing state  of  things, — then  the  task  of  the  preacher — 
judged  by  the  Zeitgeist^  or  by  the  drift  of  the  century 
even — is  a  hopeless  one. 

The  preacher  will  find  such  a  world  hard  to  reach 
wi-th  the  Gospel.  Law  is  the  only  preparation  for 
Gospel,  the  only  thing  that  brings  home  the  need  of  it. 
He  who  blots  out  the  law-giver,  or  gives  the  relation 
to  him  a  subordinate  place,  discounts  and  minimizes 
the  Gospel.  The  world  of  to-day  hates  all  law,  and 
has  no  care  for  the  Gospel.  The  people  in  the  Church 
do  not  listen  to  it  willingly.  A  practical  protest  comes 
up  from  multitudes  whenever  opportunity  offers.  The 
recent  wide  discussion  of  the  doctrine  of  '*  future  pun- 
ishment," and  of  ''  post-mortem  probation,"  is  absolute 
proof  of  the  dislike  of  the  law  of  God  and  of  the  drift 


152       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

toward  semi-universalism.     Men  do  not  like  even  to  be 
called  "sinners."     They  resent  it. 

The  Zeitgeist  has  no  doubt  gone  further  and  done  a 
large  work  in  molding  the  ministry  and  their  preach- 
ing. Where  such  tremendous  pressure  is  brought  to 
bear  against  the  strong  truths  of  the  Word  of  God, 
and  against  the  awful  sanctions  of  the  law,  the  uncon- 
scious drift  of  the  minister  is,  at  the  outset,  from  the 
messenger  toward  the  advocate  and  apologist.  In- 
stead of  boldly  proclaiming  God's  truth,  and  thus 
holding  firmly  his  high  vantage  ground,  he  gives  him- 
self to  the  useless  work  of  defending  God,  or  to  the 
mean  work  of  apologizing  for  God.  And,  when  he  has 
descended  to  that,  he  is  likely  soon  to  be  found  teach- 
ing restorationism,  repentance  in  a  future  world, 
preaching  to  the  lost  spirits  in  prison,  or  uttering  any 
other  sentimental  twaddle  men  may  desire  to  hear. 

Innumerable  examples  could  be  given  of  the  work- 
ing of  these  things.  As  a  typical  case,  a  thoroughly 
godly  man  was,  not  long  since,  driven  out  of  a  New 
England  parish  by  the  influence  of  one  rich  Universal- 
ist  pew-holder,  just  because  he  ventured  mildly  to 
affirm  his  belief  in  future  punishment.  The  writer 
recalls  an  examination  for  ordination,  at  which  he 
himself  was  present,  several  years  since.  In  the 
course  of  the  examination,  the  candidate  was  asked  : 
''What  does  the  Bible  teach  on  the  subject  of  future 
punishment  ?"  He  leaned  back  in  his  seat,  and,  with 
half-closed  eyes,  toyed  with  his  pet  mustache  for  a 
moment,  and  then  answered,  w4th  evident  satisfaction 
and  profound  confidence  of  superior  wisdom  :  **I  have 
not  made  up  my  mind  on  that  point."  He  was 
ordained!  Naturally,  he  long  since  drifted  out  of  the 
evangelical  ministry. 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  153 

To  sum  up  the  condition  of  things:  the  world  of 
to-day,  with  its  atomism  and  its  secularism,  presents 
the  most  tremendous  obstacles  to  the  summary 
work  of  the  ministry.  The  Church  of  of  Difficulties. 
God,  with  its  shattered  sense  of  the  invisible  and  eter- 
nal, with  its  low  estimate  of  character  and  souls,  and 
with  its  practical  dislike  of  these  life-and-death  truths 
of  God's  Word,  furnishes  but  little  of  that  earnestness 
and  inspiration  that  would  lead  her  membership  to 
overtake  this  vast  work  of  salvation — for  the  lapsed 
masses,  for  the  Greek  and  Roman  Churches,  and  for 
the  dying  heathen — a  vast  work  which,  as  has  been 
seen,  God  calls  upon  her  to  do  without  delay.  We  of 
the  ministry — without  the  overwhelming  sense  of  the 
presence  of  God  and  the  call  from  God;  without  the 
profound  conviction  of  the  infinite  value  of  souls;  and 
without  the  unfaltering  faith  in  the  grand  and  terrible 
truths  that  make  the  work  of  salvation  matter  of  in- 
finite urgency — have  not  the  elements  of  power  neces- 
sary to  inspire  and  lead  men,  to  mold  society,  and 
save  a  lost  world.  We  are  manifestly  at  one  of  these 
crises  in  the  history  of  the  Church,  where  there  is 
imperative  and  supreme  need  for  the  interposition  of 
the  Spirit  of  God. 


SECTION  SECOND. 

The  Remedy  in  the  Preacher  and  his  Furnishing. 

The  remedy  for  this  evil  condition  is  to  be  found  in 
such  a  mighty  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  the 
Church  as  this  age  needs,  and  as  the  signs  of  the  times 
seem  to  indicate  to  be  imminent,  and,  in  connection 
with  and  as   the  outcome  of  this,  in  a  new  order  of 


154      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

preachers,  who  shall  be  so  prepared  for  their  work, 
and  so  divinely  girded,  as  to  be  able  to  mold  the 
Church  and  the  world,  rather  than  be  molded  by  the 
Church  and  the  world.  Besides  these  general  require- 
ments, there  is  need  to  emphasize  some  of  the  special 
needs  of  the  preacher. 


I.  Intellectual  Mastery  of  the  Situation. 

The  preacher  who  would  belong  to  this  order  will 
need  to  begin  with  surveying  carefully  and  mastering 
the  existing  situation,  in  its  relations  to  the  develop- 
ment and  progress  of  Christianity.  He  will  need  to 
study  and  ascertain  the  origin  and  causes  of  the  pres- 
ent crisis  in  Christendom.  He  will  find,  by  such 
study,  that  the  state  of  things  is  the  result  of  perver- 
sions of  the  fundamental  principles  of  Protestant 
Perversions  of  Christianity.  The  Reformation  of  the 
Protestantism,  sixteenth  century  undertook  the  task  of 
freeing  man  from  slavery  to  the  Roman  hierarchy, 
with  its  unhistorical  traditions  and  its  usurped  au- 
thority over  the  human  soul  and  the  Church.  Its  fun- 
damental principles  may  be  summed  up  as  embracing: 

First.  The  Bible,  as  the  Word  of  God,  the  only  au- 
thoritative rule  of  faith  and  practise,  and  Christ  the 
sole  Head  of  the  Church. 

Second,  Justification  by  faith  the  only  way  of  salva- 
tion. 

Third.  The  right  of  private  judgment,  under  the 
atithority  of  the  Bible,  in  matters  of  religion — involving 
religious  responsibility  and  liberty. 

He  will  find  marked  perversions,  especially  in  the 
making   of   one  of    these   principles   supreme.      The 


THE   PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING.  155 

Bible  and  Christ  as  sole  rule  and  Head  have  been  dis- 
placed by  State-Church  and  decrees  of  ecclesiastical 
councils  and  assemblies,  and  by  the  assumed  authority 
of  secular  and  theological  schools,  and  secular  scholars, 
critics,  and  philosophers.  Every  one  knows  the  re- 
sults. Christianity  as  a  saving  power,  working  through 
justification  by  faith  and  regeneration,  has  given  place 
to  merely  formal  religion,  seeking  at  best  nothing 
above  rites  and  ceremonies  with  outward  morality, 
and,  at  worst,  permitting  all  immorality.  Reform  and 
decency  have  been  substituted  for  regeneration  and 
holiness. 

The  power  of  godliness  at  the  foundation  having 
been  thus  removed,  the  principle  of  individual  freedom 
has  been  pushed  to  the  extreme,  until  men  have  repu- 
diated, not  only  all  illegitimate  authority,  but  all 
authority  of  whatever  kind,  human  and  divine.  Indi- 
vidualism has  reached  egoism  pure  and  simple,  which 
makes  the  essence  of  life  thinking  of  oneself  only,  living 
for  oneself  only — in  short,  has  reached  Mr.  Spencer's 
complete  morality,  in  the  working  out  of  the  two 
basal  brute  instincts  of  self-preservation  and  the 
reproduction  of  the  species.  Those  who  have  thrown 
off  the  authority  of  the  Bible  and  the  Church,  elevated 
bodily  comfort  and  interests  to  the  chief  places,  and 
come  to  think  the  enjoyment  of  plenty  to  eat  and 
drink  in  this  world  the  only  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  have 
naturally  developed  into  modern  democracy,  inspired 
with  the  hope  of  bringing  in  their  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
by  political  means  and  forces. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  democratic  principle 
is  in  the  line  of  normal  Protestant  development;  but 
always  in  due  subordination  to  the  authority  of  God 
and  his  Word,  and  of  law  divine  and  human.     It  may 


156    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

have  been  necessary  in  the  working  out  of  the  best 
final  results,  in  the  present  evil  condition  of  humanity, 
that  this  development  should  pass  through  certain 
perversions  and  extremes.  But,  however  that  may  be, 
the  extreme  development  of  democracy  has  apparently 
been  reached,  throughout  Christendom.  In  1894,  in 
Europe,  $5,500,000,000  was  added  to  the  national 
debts  in  sustaining  the  militarism  necessary  to  hold 
down  the  masses;  and  the  nations  are  thereby  rapidly 
drifting,  under  stress  of  the  democratic  forces,  into 
the  national  bankruptcy  that  must  wreck  that  mili- 
tarism and  revolutionize  society.  In  this  country  the 
destiny  of  the  nation  has  seemed  to  be  quite  as 
rapidly  drifting  under  the  control  of  a  bloated  plu- 
tocracy— more  dangerous  and  demoralizing  than  the 
militarism — built  upon  a  basis  of  gigantic  frauds  and 
robberies,  in  railway  wreckings  and  Black  Fridays, 
and  of  robber  trade-combinations  and  trusts,  holding 
monopoly  of  everything  used  by  the  people — from 
sugar  and  oil  to  quinine  and  coffins — a  plutocracy  that 
has  debauched  the  legislatures,  the  national  congress, 
and  the  courts  of  justice,  and  is  doing  its  best  to  cor- 
rupt popular  sentiment  by  aping  the  manners  and 
morals  of  the  effete  European  aristocracy  or  seeking 
alliances  with  it,  and  lowering  the  tone  of  Christian 
sentiment  by  its  efforts  to  purchase  churchly  respect- 
ability and  a  reputation  for  Christian  charity.  The 
phenomenal  development  of  populism  and  socialism, 
and  the  frequent  recurrence  of  strikes  and  riots,  show 
that  the  masses  in  this  country  are  becoming  quite  as 
desperate  as  in  Europe,  and  the  situation  almost  as 
threatening. 

It  is  the  perverted  democratic  principle  against  the 
world  and  everything   else.     Everywhere  the  human 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  157 

tiger — the  fiercest  of  all  beasts  when  driven  to  the 
wall — has  evidently  almost  reached  the  point  of  des- 
peration— as  is  shown  in  the  anarchism  of  the  age 
that  is  so  portentous  of  coming  anarchy. 

The  preacher  will  also  note,  in  his  study,  that  lead- 
ing economists  and  publicists  are  everywhere  antici- 
pating as  possible — nay,  as  probable,  if  not  inevitable — 
in  the  near  future,  great  and  radical  changes  in  society 
and  politics;  perhaps  absolute  and  world-wide  up- 
heaval and  revolution.  As  Mr.  W.  S.  Lilly  has  so 
strikingly  said  :  * 

' '  Assuredly,  if  morality  be  the  life  of  nations,  these  ominous  symp- 
toms might  lead  us  to  anticipate  a  social  cataclysm  ;  a  breaking  up  of 
civilization  more  terrible  and  complete  than  that  which  Europe 
witnessed  fourteen  hundred  years  ago  ;  for  the  destroyers  would  not 
be  simple  and  uncorrupted  races,  with  strong,  broad  notions  of  right 
and  wrong,  with  keen  susceptibility  to  the  influences  of  religion,  but 
decivilized  men,  emancipated  from  moral  and  civil  restraints,  and 
ruled  solely  by  brute  instincts  and  passions." 

He    will    also    be    convinced    by    his    study    that 
were   there   nothing    more   or   stronger,    in    modern 
society,  to  counteract  these  destructive  christian 'tv  a 
tendencies  than  the  moral  forces  of  the     Principle  of 
old    Roman    world,    the    outlook    would      Recovery, 
certainly  be  hopeless.     But  he  will  find  Christianity  is 
in  the  world  as  an  immense  recuperative  and  recon- 
structive force.     The  extreme  developments  of  indi- 
vidualism, while  they  are  the  perversion  of  a  principle 
of  the  Reformation,  are  proof  of  an  immense  advance 
in  **the  apprehension  of  the   transcendent  worth  of 
human   personality."      The    Church    is   in   the  world 
and  yet  not  of  it — the  Church  invisible,  the  Church 
"  against  which  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail," — 

*  On  Shibboleths,  pp.  36,  37. 


158     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

containing  in  it  a  ** principle  of  recovery"  unknown  to 
the  ancient  world.  The  moral  advance  of  the  ages 
through  her  influence  has  been  immense.  The  silent 
influence  she  wields  is  incalculable.  The  principles 
that  she  has  wrought  into  law,  into  the  higher  elements 
of  society,  into  great  permanent  institutions,  show 
themselves  to  be  dominant  when  great  crises  come. 
A  divine  life  and  power  are  in  her.  While  the  trend  of 
a  generation  may  seem  to  be  away  from  the  right  :  the 
trend  of  the  ages  under  Christian  forces  is  upward  and 
God-ward.  The  purpose  of  God  in  the  Gospel  moves 
majestically  on.  James  Russell  Lowell  has  justly 
contrasted  the  seeming  and  the  reality,  and  his  con- 
trast answers  to  history  : 

"  Careless  seems  the  Great  Avenger  ;  History's  pages  but  record 
One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness  'twixt  old  systems  and  the  Word  ; 
Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold,  Wrong  forever  on  the  throne — 
Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future  and,  behind  the  dim  unknown, 
Standeth  God  within  the  shadow,  keeping  watch  above  his  own." 

The  investigator  will  likwise  see  how  this  perverted 
individualism  has  carried  with  it  elevated  conceptions, 
before  undreamed  of  in  history,  of  the  dignity  of  man- 
hood and  of  human  responsibility,  freedom,  and  power. 
And  the  survey  will  help  him  to  see  clearly  that 
Christianity  as  a  saving  power — in  the  vital  principles 
that  made  the  Reformation — has  the  principles  that 
can  shape  and  direct  aright  the  destiny  of  Christendom 
in  this  time  of  so  grave  contingencies;  that,  as  the 
present  condition  has  resulted  from  their  perversion, 
and  carries  elements  of  vast  progress  along  with  the 
elements  of  evil;  so  the  remedy  indicated  for  the  cor- 
rection of  the  evil  is  the  reaffirmation  and  the  vigor- 
ous pushing  of  those  principles  in  their  correct  form, 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  159 

especially  in  its  formal  principle,  of  the  Bible  as  the 
Word  of  God,  and  in  its  material  principle,  of  justifica- 
tion by  faith.  The  coming  upheavals  and  revolutions 
may  thus  be  made  the  means  of  progress  in  saving  the 
world. 

The  preacher  of  to-day,  as  the  leader  of  the  Church 
and  the  representative  and  expounder  of  her  mission, 
who    thus    masters    the    situation,    will  The  Preacher's 
understand    that   the   saving  efficacy  of    Timely Mes- 
his  message  will  depend,  so  far  as  truth         ^^^®* 
is  concerned,  upon  the  emphasizing  of  the  discredited 
truths  of  Protestantism  that  must  go  to  correct  the 
spurious  individualism  and  bring  men  back  to  God  and 
the  Bible.     He   will   be  prepared  to  fill  men's  minds 
with  the   words  of  deliverance  and  salvation,  and  of 
true    freedom   that,    with    the   blessing   of   God,   will 
silently  master  and  transform  the  forces  of  evil  and 
reconstruct  society  when  the  breaking  up  comes,  on 
the  principles  of  a  genuine  Christianity. 

In  addition  to  calling  attention  to  the  general  and 
fundamental  truths  of  Protestantism,  it  is  proposed  to 
emphasize  some  special  characteristics  required  in  the 
typical  preacher,  for  whom  the  Church  of  this  age  has 
such  urgent  need,  and  for  whom  Christ  so  urgently 
calls. 


II.   A  More  Scriptural  Working-Theor\. 

The  preacher  for  these  times  needs  to  adopt,  at  the 
outset,  a  more  Scriptural  working-theory  of  the  minis- 
try— one  that  will  give  him  such  a  sense  of  the  truth 
that  he  is  the  representative  of  God  in  the  world, 
the  embassador   of  God   to   lost   souls,  that  his  very 


i6o     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

personal  presence  shall  bring  God  down  into  the  world 
as  a  reality  again. 

Let  it  be  understood  that,  in  all  that  is  to  be  said  on 
this  subject,  piety  is  presupposed.  Without  that  there 
can  be  no  minister  of  God;  but  presupposing  that, 
there  are  certain  special  requirements. 

The  preacher  needs   to  have  an   unmistakable  call 
from  God.     The  only  warrant  for  any  man's  entrance 
1.  A  Call  from   upon  the  ministry  is  such  a  divine  call. 
God.  An    uncalled    ministry  must   be   an   un- 

qualified and  an  unsent  ministry;  for  God  only  quali- 
fies and  sends  whom  he  calls.  "  I  have  not  sent  these 
prophets,  yet  they  ran;  I  have  not  spoken  to  them, 
yet  they  prophesied."  *'Wo  be  to  the  pastors  that 
destroy  and  scatter  the  sheep  of  my  pasture  !  saith 
the  Lord."  A  man  who  has  simply  gone  through  the 
training-school,  and  been  licensed  and  ordained  by  the 
Presbytery  or  Consociation  or  Council,  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  minister  of  the  Gospel  in  the  sight  of  God. 
No  mere  human  training  and  setting  apart  can  make 
him  such.  God  only  can  call  to  the  sacred  office,  and 
the  one  who  enters  uncalled  helps  to  ^'  overstock"  the 
ministry,  and  becomes  the  cause,  perhaps  unwitting 
and  unwilling,  of  innumerable  and  grievous  evils,  even 
tho  it  still  be  true  that  there  is  need  of  a  hundred 
ministers  where  there  is  but  one.  No  man  can  speak 
or  act  with  the  authority  with  which  men  must  speak 
and  act  in  this  day,  to  be  heard  above  the  thunder  of 
the  world's  traffic,  and  heeded,  unless  he  has  a  call  as 
real,  if  not  as  articulate,  as  had  the  prophets  in  the 
olden  times. 

There  is  special  need  to  remember,  in  this  day,  that 
the  ministry  is  not  simply  a  pi'ofessioji^  like  medicine 
or  law,  in  which  a  man  is  to  make  a  living  and  gain  a 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  l6r 

position.  We  have  known  men  to  enter  it  as  a  pro- 
fession, by  a  syllogism,  instead  of  by  a  call  from  God. 
It  may  have  been  by  a  syllogism  in  everybody's 
mouth:  ''A  Christian  man  can  accomplish  more  good 
in  the  ministry  than  in  any  other  work  in  life;  there- 
fore, I  am  bound  to  enter  the  ministry."  It  may  have 
been  by  a  syllogism  from  a  Secretary  of  some  Board 
of  Education  :  "  Every  pious  young  man  is  bound  to 
enter  the  ministry,  unless  he  can  demonstrate  that  he 
is  not."  If  one  will  look  into  them,  he  will  see  that 
both  of  these  syllogisms  are  sheer  fallacies.  Take  the 
first.  There  is  many  a  Christian  man  who  would 
accomplish  a  hundred-fold  more  for  God  as  a  plow- 
man, or  a  carpenter,  or  a  merchant,  than  as  a  minister. 
Take  the  last.  Its  major  premise  would  be  nearer 
Scripture,  if  it  read:  "Every  pious  young  man  is 
bound  to  stay  out  of  the  ministry,  unless  he  can 
demonstrate  the  contrary." 

If  a  man  is  to  be  worth  the  most  in  the  ministry,  he 
must  go  into  it  in  answer  to  that  prayer  which  Christ 
taught  his  disciples,  when  he  said  :  '*  Pray,  ye,  there- 
fore, the  Lord  of  the  harvest  that  he  will  send  forth 
laborers  into  the  harvest."  The  word  is  sef/d,  hurl^ 
drive  forth  !  The  ministry  needed  is  a  ministry  sent, 
hurled,  driven,  into  the  work  by  stress  of  conscience 
and  divine  command;  a  ministry  with  the  urgency  of 
God  himself  back  of  them,  so  that  they  can  sympathize 
with  Paul,  when  he  said,  *'Wo  is  me  if  I  preach  not 
the  Gospel,"  and  with  John  Knox,  when  he  tried  to 
hide  himself  from  God  and  his  call. 

Said  a  brilliant  preacher  to  the  writer,  not  long 
since,  "I  entered  the  ministry  as  a  profession.  I 
have  never  been  conscious  of  anything  like  a  call  to 
preach  the  Gospel,  and  wonder  if  any  such  thing  is 


i62     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

necessary."     He  had  been  a  brilliant  sermonizer,  had 

ministered     to     rich,     cultivated,     and     fashionable 

churches,  had  won  a  large  circle  of  admirers;  but  he 

had   become   soured    and    misanthropic,    had   become 

conscious  that  even  his  success  had  been  failure.     The 

fruits  of  his  ministry  in  saved  souls,  in  noble  Christian 

characters,    and    in    energetic    spiritual    workers   for 

Christ,   had   been   wanting.     He    acknowledged    with 

sadness  that  his  was  an  uncalled  ministry. 

The  preacher  must  find  his  one  message  in  the  Word 

of  God.     **Go  preach  my  Gospel  "  is  the  commission. 

n  mi.   ■»*•         *'  Preach   the   Word  "   is  the  command. 
2.  The  Mes- 
sage from       Bible  Christianity  as  a  saving  power   is 

^°^'  the   message.       Men   in   this   rapid   age 

have  tried  many  ways  of  reaching  the  busy  and  ab- 
sorbed world.  They  have  tried  the  Gospel  of  phi- 
losophy and  esthetics,  the  Gospel  of  science  and  art; 
they  have  tried  the  Gospel  of  sensation,  clap-trap,  and 
twaddle;  the  gospel  of  scolding,  of  denunciation  and 
abuse,  of  vinegar  and  wormwood;  but  the  masses  have 
been  steadily  drifting  away  from  the  Church  in  spite 
of  them.  The  philosophers  and  scientists  can  beat 
the  pulpit  at  the  first;  the  theatrical  managers  can 
distance  it  at  the  second;  and  the  Daily  Heralds  and 
Times  can  place  themselves  beyond  its  competition  at 
the  third.  No  message  has  been  found  to  take  the 
place  of  the  Word  of  God;  no  keenness  of  speculation, 
no  profundity  of  philosophy,  no  polish  of  learning. 
There  is  nothing  but  God's  eternal  Word,  uttered  from 
a  heart  and  lips  touched  and  fired  by  a  call  from  God, 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  sins  and  evils  of  the  time, 
and  driven  home  upon  the  conscience  with  a  voice 
of  divine  authority — there  is  nothing  but  this  that  can 
reach  and  hold  the  attention  of  this  modern  world. 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  163 

The  preacher  must  have  as  his  grand  aim  the  saving 
of  souls.  It  is  not,  as  too  many  seem  to  think,  the 
mission  of  the  preacher  to  deliver  two  3  The  Aim  of 
polished  orations  weekly  to  applauding  Saving  Souls, 
audiences.  It  is  something  higher  by  all  the  spaces 
than  that.  Dr.  Gardiner  Spring  remarks,  in  his 
Autobiography^'^  that  laborious  ministers  generally 
gain  their  object.  *'  If  it  is  to  write  elegant  sermons, 
they  write  them,  and  gain  their  object.  If  it  is  to 
write  /earned  sermons,  they  write  them,  and  gain  their 
object.  If  it  is  to  enrich  their  discourses  with  the  pithy 
and  concentrated  sentences  of  other  days,  and  great 
men,  they  do  it  and  gain  their  object.  If  it  is  to  be 
popular^  they  are  popular,  and  there  the  matter  ends. 
They  look  no  further.  They  gain  their  object,  and 
have  never  thought  of  anything  beyond  it.  It  was  not 
the  conversion  of  sinners  they  were  aiming  at,  and 
therefore  they  never  attained  it.  I  know  a  most  worthy 
minister  who  preached  more  than  a  year  to  the  same 
people,  and  his  preaching  was  sound  in  doctrine,  logi- 
ical,  and  able;  but  during  that  whole  period  I  have  yet 
to  learn  that  a  single  sinner  was  alarmed,  convinced, 
or  converted  to  God.  And  the  reason  is,  that  was  not 
his  object.  He  did  not  study  for  it,  nor  pray  for  it, 
nor  preach  for  it.  He  gained  his  object  most  effec- 
tually, but  it  was  not  the  conversion  of  men."  The 
preacher  will  be  tested  before  God,  by  his  aim  in  the 
work. 

An  aged  minister — we  suspect  it  was  Dr.  Spring — 
once  put  the  pointed  question  to  Dr.  William  M. 
Paxton,  then  of  New  York:  ''When  you  prepare  a 
sermon,  what  are  you  in  favor  of?  "  In  explaining  his 
meaning  he  added:   ''Some  ministers  are  in  favor  of 

*  Autobiography ,  vol.  i.,  p.  107. 


164    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

preparing  a  discourse;  some  of  discussing  a  subject 
before  the  public;  and  some  of  saving  souls.  What 
are  you  in  favor  of  ?  "  There  is  only  one  thing  that 
one  can  be  in  favor  of,  and  be  in  sympathy  with  Him 
who  called  him  to  the  sacred  office.  He  sent  his  Son 
into  the  world  to  save  sinners  ;  and  he  sends  men,  if 
he  sends  them  at  all,  on  a  mission  of  soul-seeking  to 
lost  sinners,  and  with  no  other  aim  can  they  over- 
take and  rescue  this  world  of  lost  souls,  hastening  on 
the  wings  of  steam  and  electricity  to  perdition. 

To  the  call  from  God,  the  message  from  him,  and 
the  single  aim   of  saving  souls,  there  must  be  added 

4  The  ftuick-   ^^^  quickening  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

eningofthe  In  that  sublime  vision  of  the  Prophet  in 
Spirit.  ^j^g  temple,  before  God  called  from  his 
throne,  **Who  will  go  for  us?"  and  the  trembling 
prophet  responded,  ''Here  am  I.  Send  me,"  one  of 
the  seraphim  flew  with  a  live  coal,  which  he  had  taken 
from  off  the  altar,  and  laid  it  upon  the  prophet's 
mouth,  and  said,  *'Lo,  this  hath  touched  thy  lips; 
and  thine  iniquity  is  taken  away  and  thy  sin  purged." 
So  the  fire  from  the  Holy  Ghost  must  needs  touch  the 
lips,  before  the  message  will  avail. 

In  the  New  Testament  the  central  point  of  power 
was   revealed    at   Pentecost.      The   command   to  the 

Pentecostal  Apostles  was,  not  to  go  out  and  enter 
Power.  upon  the  work  of  evangelizing  the  world, 
without  any  special  preparation  for  this,  but,  ''Tarry 
ye  at  Jerusalem  until  ye  shall  be  endued  with  power 
from  on  high."  There  was  given  them  the  promise 
of  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  That  promise 
was  fulfilled  at  Pentecost,  when  the  Christian  Church 
was  born  and  the  Apostles  girded  for  their  work  for 
mankind.     The  sermon  by  Peter,  the  preacher  on  that 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  165 

day,  gifted  with  the  tongue  of  fire,  was  the  means  of 
saving  thousands  of  souls. 

No  preacher  can  expect  to  reach  the  world  with  a 
sermon  that  is  not  prepared  by  the  aid  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  delivered  under  his  quickening  and  inspiring 
influence,  and  carried  home  to  the  hearer  by  his 
illumining  and  saving  power.  This  is  true,  too,  of  the 
Word  of  God  spoken  by  the  way.  The  preacher  must 
everywhere  and  always  exalt  and  lean  upon  the  power 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Spirit  who  can  alone  ''reprove 
the  world  of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of  judgment."* 
His  polished  rhetoric  will  fail,  his  profoundest  learning 
prove  impotent,  his  sublimest  eloquence  be  but  as  the 
"sounding  brass  and  tinkling  cymbal,"  without  this 
supreme  and  only  saving  power. 

Now  all  this  sense  of  the  call  and  presence  of  the 
living  God  must  somehow  be  embodied  in  the  w^orking- 
theory  of  the  ministry  that  is  to  speak  for  God  to  this 
self-indulgent,  utilitarian,  God-neglecting,  and  God- 
defying  age,  with  any  saving  efficacy.  Let  every 
servant  of  Christ  be  urged  and  warned,  in  the  Master's 
name,  if  his  working-theory  be  wrong  or  defective  in 
any  one  of  these  points,  to  lay  not  his  hand  upon  the 
sacred  things  until  he  has  made  it  right.  Let  the 
word  go  out  to  the  ministry,  in  Christ's  name  :  *'  Tarry 
at  your  Jerusalem  till  you  have  heard  the  call,  received 
the  message,  been  inspired  with  the  aim — till  ye  be 
endued  with  power  from  on  high." 

HL  A  Different  and  Better  Training. 

The  preacher  who  would  succeed  in  the  highest  sense 
in  these  times  requires  a  different  and  better  training  of 
his  various  powers  for  the  work  in  which  he  is  engaged, 

*  Tohn  xvi.   8-10. 


i66     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

It  may  seem  quite  obvious,  yet  it  needs  to  be  espe- 
1.  Better  Logi-  cially  emphasized,  that  a  better  and  dif- 

cal  Training,  erent  training  of  the  logical  faculty  is 
indispensable  in  the  present  age. 

The  bane  of  the  age  is  the  indefinite,  indistinct,  in- 
coherent thinking  that  is  kept  so  constantly  before  the 
public  through  all  the  popular  channels  of  intelligence, 
and  made  so  prominent,  imposing,  and  fascinating  as 
to  shut  out  of  view  or  obscure  all  the  higher  and  exact 
thinking,  and  cause  itself  to  be  regarded  as  the  sum 
of  all  truth  and  wisdom.  We  refer  to  the  indefinite 
thinking,  or  no-thinking,  that  has  come  to  the  present 
generation,  as  a  special  infliction,  from  those  loosest 
of  all  modern  so-called  thinkers,  John  Stuart  Mill  and 
Herbert  Spencer,  and  their  friends  and  disciples,  and 
that  has  been  embodied  in  so  much  of  what  has  been 
furnished  for  popular  reading.  It  commonly  takes  on 
a  highly  rhetorical  form,  and  delights  to  explain  away, 
or  envelop  in  haziness  or  mysticism,  the  plain  doc- 
trines of  the  Bible,  so  that  they  come  from  its  touch 
so  transformed  as  not  to  be  recognizable  by  those 
familiar  with  the  ordinary  use  of  language.  Theologi- 
cal weaklings  and  literary  Miss  Nancys  devote  them- 
selves to  translating  Scriptural  truth  into  popular 
twaddle,  and  succeed  to  perfection.  The  love  of  God 
becomes  sentimental  gush;  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  on 
the  cross,  a  mere  exhibition  of  sentimental  sympathy; 
and  the  divine  retributive  justice  of  God,  merely  an 
aspect  of  his  love  hitherto  obscured  by  hard-hearted 
and  perverse  theologians.  They  attempt  to  translate 
common-sense  Bible  and  Christian  thought  in  terms 
of  Spencerian  evolution,  and  the  crowd  become  wild 
over  it;  altho,  when  competent  critics  examine  the 
product  of  their  labors,  the  skilled  theologian  rejects 


THE   PREACHER   AND   HIS   FURNISHING.  167 

it  as  bad  theology,  and  the  exact  scientist  spews  it  out 
as  pseudo-science.  They  nod  wisely  and  talk  learnedly 
of  **  environment"  in  the  Kingdom  of  God,  of  **  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest,"  of  ''persistence  of  force,"  and  all 
that;  and  are  spoken  of  as  being  ''abreast  of  the  age." 
Definition,  clear  statement,  old-fashioned  phrase,  are 
the  special  aversion  of  these  inventors  or  mongers  of 
the  undefined.  Appearance  of  originality,  of  freshness, 
of  rhetorical  finish,  of  flavor  of  learning  and  literary 
culture,  is  their  peculiar  ambition.  What  with  the  in- 
tellectual thimble-rigging  and  general  sleight-of-hand, 
supplemented  by  unlimited  assertion  and  so-called 
reasoning,  the  great  facts  of  the  Bible  dissolve  and 
disappear,  under  their  handling,  as  readily  as  do  the 
doctrines.  One  takes  up  one  of  the  great  foreign 
reviews,  and  is  entertained  by  some  professor  of  im- 
posing name  and  fame,  but  without  scientific  knowl- 
edge of  geology,  theology,  or  Scriptures,  with  a  breezy 
essay  going  to  show  that  the  Noachic  deluge,  or  the 
miracle  of  the  destruction  of  the  swine,  is  a  mere 
myth,  if  not  a  fraudulent  invention.  One  opens  his 
American  religious  paper,  and  finds  a  leading  clerical 
writer  represented  as  saying,  "  Genesis  on  the  fall  of 
man  is  an  ancient  legend,  which  a  great  writer  took, 
as  Tennyson  took  the  Arthurian  legends,  and  rewrote 
it  in  order  that  he  might  write  a  moral  and  spiritual 
lesson.  I  think  that  the  Hebrew  people  believed  the 
fall  of  man  affected  the  whole  human  race.  I  think 
Paul  believed  so."  And  so,  with  one  flourish  of  the 
tongue,  the  entire  foundation  of  the  Bible  and  its 
theology,  of  incarnation  and  redemption,  is  swept 
away.  These  men  write  and  speak  patronizingly  of 
Moses  and  of  Christ.  Ingersoll  talks  bluntly  of  "  the 
mistakes  of  Moses  " ;  these  men  talk  of  "  the  legends  " 


i68     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

or  *' myths"  of  Moses,  with  a  begging-your-pardon  air 
for  using  language  that  might  seem  to  imply  that  there 
was  a  Moses  and  that  he  possibly  wrote  something  ! 

Perhaps  the  assumption  and  assertion  of  these  spirits 
of  indefiniteness  have  done  more  than  anything  else  to 
discredit  clear  thinking  and  Bible  truth,  and  sound 
doctrine  as  resting  upon  these.  And  on  how  slender 
a  capital  have  they  carried  on  their  immense  business! 
It  has  been  brazen  impudence — sometimes  under  the 
guise  of  modesty,  sometimes  not.  Every  one  who 
knows  them  knows  that  they  are  not  acquainted  with 
the  principles  of  scientific  method,  and  that  they  have 
neither  real  theological  learning  nor  logical  acumen. 
Most  of  them  show,  in  every  sentence,  that  they  are 
incapable  of  logical  and  clear  thinking,  innocent  of 
knowledge  of  Bible  truth,  and  out  of  sympathy  with 
earnest,  evangelical  religion.  Their  strongest  hand 
with  the  masses  is  in  the  role  of  modesty.  They  barely 
suggest  that  ''the  old  theologians  were  too  confi- 
dent. They  knew  too  much.  Paul's  statements  were 
doubtless  accommiodated  to  Jewish  or  Greek,  or  Roman 
prejudices.  It  will  not  do  to  take  him  too  literally 
when  he  writes  of  salvation,  of  propitiation,  of  vicari- 
ous atonement,  and  all  that.  The  Apostles  thought 
and  believed  so  and  so;  but  they,  like  ourselves,  were 
under  the  influence  of  the  popular  beliefs  of  the  age. 
It  is  better  to  recognize  our  limitations,  the  limitations 
common  to  humanity.  The  region  of  religion  is  a  mys- 
terious region,  and  we  should  not  attempt  to  take  the 
mystery  out  of  it  by  our  too  definite  dogmatic  state- 
ments." And  on  hearing  them,  in  this  role  of  the 
modest  theologian,  Mr.  Hardcastle  would  no  doubt  ex- 
claim: ''  This  may  be  modern  modesty,  but  I  never  saw 
anything  look  so  like  old-fashioned  impudence!"     As 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  169 

if  the  world  had  just  come  to  itself,  and  come  to  know- 
something,  in  the  muddled  religious  consciousness  of 
these  dwarfs  and  pygmies,  the  laughing-stock  of  the 
thinking  men  of  their  own  generation  even;  so  that, 
at  their  beck  and  nod,  at  the  wag  of  their  tongue,  or 
the  scratch  of  their  pen,  all  the  giants  of  the  ages — 
Moses  and  Isaiah,  and  John  and  Paul,  and  even  Jesus 
himself,  and  all  the  great  theologians  of  the  Christian 
ages  besides — were  to  be  discredited  and  set  aside  ! 

Now  no  man  is  in  a  position  to  exert  so  powerful 
an  influence,  either  for  or  against  the  continuance  of 
such  thinking,  as  the  preacher  of  the  Gospel.  By  a 
gospel  of  indefiniteness  and  inconsistency,  he  can  help 
continue  the  muddle,  in  which  so  many  find  themselves, 
regarding  the  truths  of  Christianity;  by  a  clear,  dis- 
tinct, and  consistent  presentation  of  the  truth,  he  can 
help  them  out  of  this  condition. 

Owing  to  many  and  various  influences,  besides  this 
drift  of  the  times^  chief  of  which  is  perhaps  the  fact 
that  the  courses  of  study  are  too  full  of  other  things 
to  admit  of  any  adequate  study  of  the  nature  of  the 
human  mind  and  of  human  thought,  the  average  man 
gets,  in  his  course  of  training,  by  his  own  confession, 
next  to  nothing  on  these  important  subjects.  Said  a 
young  professor,  who  had  been  the  honor-man  in  one 
of  the  great  colleges:  **I  studied  mental  philosophy, 
moral  philosophy,  and  logic,  under  that  distinguished 
scholar.  Professor  So  and  So,  but  they  made  no  im- 
pression whatever  on  my  mind,  and  I  have  now  no  defi- 
nite theories  on  those  subjects. "    That  is  a  typical  case. 

Before  the  preacher  is  ready  to  deal  with  any  sub- 
ject of  discourse  that  is  worth  presenting  to  a  people, 
he  needs  to  lay  the  proper  foundation  for  it  by  gaining 
the   power   of   forming   correct   conceptions,    on    the 


170      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

basis  of  reality  and  fact;  and  then  to  acquire  the 
power  of  bringing  out  the  essence  of  these  conceptions 
in  exact  definitions,  and  of  accurately  distributing 
their  elements  by  means  of  logical  division  and  par- 
tition. He  needs  to  do  his  thinking  in  such  a  way 
that,  when  he  reaches  his  conceptions  and  notions, 
they  shall  be  k7iowledge  to  him,  and  something  that  he 
can  set  before  the  people  as  knowledge. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that  term?"  was  asked  of 
a  somewhat  brilliant  young  professor.  *'  Define  the 
term."  *' I  cannot  define  it,"  was  the  reply;  ''this 
thing  of  definition  is  a  great  hindrance  to  thought  and 
to  progress  in  attainments."  "It  is  impossible  to 
know,"  said  another.  "  What  do  you  mean  by  knotvV 
was  asked  him.  The  reply  was:  "It  can  not  be  de- 
fined. The  limitations  of  knowledge  are  such  that  it 
can  not  be  known  what  it  is  to  know."  The  natural 
response  was:   "  How  do  you  know  that  ?  " 

To  the  preacher  the  power  of  distinct  thinking  is 
fundamental,  even  more  clearly  so  than  to  the  mere 
teacher.  He  needs  most  of  all,  and  first  of  all,  to  gain 
definite,  clear,  and  distinct  views  of  things,  so  that 
he  shall  be  able  to  say,  on  this  point  or  that,  "  I  know.'' 
"This  \s  truth:' 

He  needs  to  study  with  equal  care  the  process  of 
forming  correct  judgments,  by  comparing  and  com- 
bining the  conceptions  he  has  formed,  defined  to  him- 
self, and  verified.  "Man  is  intelligent;"  "Man  is 
round — square."  Are  these  both  judgments?  If  not, 
why  not  ?  What  are  the  intuitive  and  natural  relations 
by  which  conceptions  are  so  bound  together  in  judg- 
ments that  one  can  say  of  such  a  combination:  "This 
is  true."  "  This  is  not  true."  The  formation  of  cor- 
rect   inferences    or   conclusions    from   assured    judg- 


THE   PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING.  I7I 

ments,  by  the  process  of  reasoning,  should  equally  be 
mastered;  so  that  a  man  can  say  of  a  conclusion 
reached  by  such  a  process:  "This  is  truth^  and  can 
not  be  gainsaid."  It  is  simple  matter  of  fact  that  very 
few  have  any  clear  conviction  that  there  are  such 
things  as  these  to  be  done;  and  that  fewer  still  have 
any  distinct  idea  of  how  they  are  to  be  done. 

Especially   is   there    requisite    for   the    preacher   a 
better   knowledge   and   training   of   the   constructive 
faculty,    by    which    conceptions,    judg-     m    •  • 
ments,  and  reasonings  are  gathered  into    Constructive 
systems  of  scientific,  artistic,  or  practi-        Faculty, 
cal  thought.     From  the  intellectual  side,  the  construc- 
tion of  such   systems  is   the  great  work  of  life;  this 
form  of  intellectual  activity,  the   form  for  which   all 
the  other  and  lower  forms  exist.     And  yet,  how  often 
is  this  power  left  without  any  training  or  intelligent 
development !     Indeed,   the  theories    of   psychology, 
and  the  books  on  that  subject,  do  not  even  recognize 
it,  except  incidentally;  so  that  it  is  natural  that  educa- 
tional methods  should  ignore  it. 

In  this  age,  when  so  much  is  heard  about  science,  and 
so  much  that  has  no  science  in  it  claims  to  be  science, 
there  is  peculiar  need  for  a  better  train-  Scientific 
ingto  the  knowledge  and  use  of  scientific  Method, 
methods.  What  is  science?  What  are  its  materials? 
What  are  its  methods  ?  These  are  fundamental  ques- 
tions. In  these  days,  when  both  inductive  and  de- 
ductive logic  are  so  travestied,  and  when  speculation 
and  imagination  and  guess-work  are  palmed  off  upon 
men  in  the  name  of  science,  and  especially  in  the  name 
of  Biblical  learning  and  Christian  theology,  it  is  of 
momentous  importance  that  the  preacher  should  be 
be  master  of  these  subjects. 


172       CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

The  preacher  needs  a  different  and  better  theologi- 
2.  A  Better     ^^^  training  to  fit  him  for  his    work    in 

Theological     this  age,  in  which  the  old  truths  have  so 
Training-.  ,         .  j       1 

many  new  bearings,  and  when  so  many- 
new  doctrinal  issues  are  raised. 

The  purpose  for  which  theological  seminaries  were 
established  was  the  preparation  of  the  preacher  for 
carrying  out  his  divine  commission,  in  proclaiming  the 
salvation  of  the  Gospel  to  the  world.  They  are  re- 
ligious and  Christian  institutions,  for  a  particular  end; 
not  educational  and  scholastic  institutions,  to  make 
scholars  in  religious  or  technical  specialties.  Failure 
to  keep  these  things  in  mind  has,  in  some  instances, 
led  to  tendencies  to  departure  from  their  original  idea 
and  purpose. 

There  has  been  in  some  quarters  a  marked  tendency 

to  Germanize  the  seminaries,  on  the  assumption  that 

„  .  .        all  scholarship  is  German,  and  that  mere 

Germanizing  ^  ' 

Theological  scholarship  is  the  end  of  the  work  in  the 
Seminaries,  institution.  The  essential  things  in  a 
thelogical  school  are,  on  the  contrary,  evangelical 
learning  and  the  development  of  pious  activities  in 
connection  with  the  principles  of  Christianity,  and 
along  with  this  the  power  to  get  the  message  out  of  the 
Word  of  God  and  to  put  it  in  the  best  shape  for  reach- 
ing and  saving  men. 

Now,  if  there  is  one  thing  manifest  in  the  view  of 
common  sense  it  is,  that  Continental,  and  especially 
German,  theological  institutions  can  not  be  safely 
made  the  models  for  our  seminaries,  in  spirit,  method, 
or  ideas.  Those  institutions  are  State  institutions. 
The  appointments  to  them  are  political.  The  man 
does  not  need  to  be  a  Christian  in  order  to  become 
either  student  or  professor  in  one  of  them.     He  may 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  173 

even  be  a  pronounced  atheist,  as  Kuenen  was,  and  de- 
vote himself  to  showing  that  there  is  no  supernatural, 
and  that  the  so-called  supernatural  in  the  Bible  is 
without  any  foundation  in  fact  or  truth.  At  best,  he 
is  required  to  know  only  a  formal  and  perfunctory 
State-Church  religion.  Ordinarily  he  has  never  known 
anything  of  vital  piety,  even  by  observation.  Often 
he  hates  evangelical  religion  and  God  and  earnest 
Christians,  because  they  are  a  perpetual  rebuke  to  the 
corrupt  and  immoral  life  he  leads.  If  he  fills  a  pro- 
fessor's chair  in  such  a  theological  institution — where 
drunken  brawls  are  not  unknown,  and  where  licen- 
tiousness is  rife  and  often  open — to  attract  attention, 
he  must  have  something  striking  to  present  in  his 
teaching.  Hence,  the  theological  vagaries  and  specula- 
tions, the  neologisms  and  rationalistic  hypotheses  and 
assumptions  and  assertions,  to  which  each  generation 
gives  birth. 

It  would  be  as  reasonable  to  expect  the  appointees 
of  the  Government  in  Washington,  who  owe  their 
places  to  family  relationship,  political  favoritism,  or 
ability  to  do  "fine  work"  in  politics,  to  evolve  on 
short  notice  into  pattern  saints  with  rapidly  sprouting 
wings,  as  it  would  be  to  expect  the  appointees  in  Con- 
tinental theological  schools  to  develop  into  lovers  of 
God's  Word  and  preachers  of  evangelical  truth;  or 
into  leaders  in  evangelistic  and  Salvation  Army  work. 
Such  institutions  are  certainly  not  the  models  for 
Christian  theological  seminaries. 

And  when  the  advocates  of  rationalistic  laxness  in 
this  country  claim  all  the  Continental  leaders  in  the 
seminaries  as  advocates  of  skeptical  and  destructive 
rationalistic  criticism,  the  weight  of  all  that  authority, 
even  if  the  claim  be  allowed  to  be  correct,  should  not 


174      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

be  regarded  by  evangelical  thinkers  and  preachers  as 
being  very  great.  But  the  claims  are  certainly  to  be 
regarded  as  extravagant,  when  we  find  such  men  as 
Kohler  of  Erlangen  and  Professor  Nosgen  setting 
their  faces  against  so  many  of  the  critical  vagaries 
and  absolutely  refuting  them.  While  there  has  been  a 
long  line  of  rationalistic  and  atheistic  teachers,  and 
while  it  is  true  that  an  orthodox  theologian  may  have 
been  an  accident,  and  an  exception  to  the  general  rule; 
still,  by  the  grace  of  God,  Germany  has  produced 
such  stanch  defenders  of  the  faith  as  Neander,  Tho- 
luck,  Hengstenberg,  Keil,  and  many  others  like  them 
in  spirit  and  attainments.  And  there  is  at  present 
peculiar  reason  for  gratification  and  hope,  in  the  fact 
that  the  vast  majority  of  the  preachers  and  churches 
are  soundly  evangelical,  and  arrayed  in  open  antago- 
nism and  hostility  against  a  comparatively  few  teachers 
in  the  universities  who  have  set  themselves  to  corrupt 
religion  and  to  destroy  the  faith  they  were  appointed 
to  teach  and  are  paid  to  defend.* 

This  tendency  to  import  Germany  and  German 
methods  and  theological  ideas  into  this  country;  to 
push  the  great  mass  of  skeptical  and  irreligious  criti- 
cism and  speculation  as  the  sum  of  all  wisdom  in  theol- 
ogy, and  to  make  use  of  the  impious  laxness  in  un- 
christian and  State  institutions  there  as  a  reason  for 
the  same  thing  here,  is  absurdly  indefensible.  The 
fact  that  a  young  man  has  studied  in  Germany  or  Hol- 
land, so  far  from  being  a  recommendation  for  a  pro- 
fessorship in  one  of  our  American  theological  schools, 
ought,  therefore,  to  go  far  toward  barring  him  from 
such  a  place,  at  least  until  his  fitness  has  been  proved 

*  See  Homiletic  Review  for  February,   1896,  article    on   "  Theo- 
logical Thought  in  Germany,"  by  Dr.  Geo.  P.  Schodde. 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  I75 

by  Other  methods  and  tests.  A  training  under  even 
the  best  of  the  German  unchristian  speciaHsts,  in  the 
midst  of  unchristian  or  anti-christian  environment,  is 
not  the  training  that  is  needed  to  fit  men  to  prepare 
young  men  to  preach  the  Gospel.  The  introduction 
of  such  men  and  methods  into  the  Church  seminaries 
is  simply  the  planting  of  the  rationalistic  and  infidel 
spirit  and  method  and  idea  right  in  the  heart  of  the 
Church.  The  glorification  of  the  learning  and  work  of 
these  men,  when  we  have  in  our  seminaries  such  Chris- 
tian scholars  as  Dr.  Howard  Osgood  and  Dr.  William 
Henry  Green,  is  in  the  highest  degree  absurd. 

There  has  been  an  equally  marked  tendency  toward 
the  introduction  of  mere  specialists  as  teachers  of  the 
great  Biblical,  theological,  and  philo-  tendency  to 
sophical  essentials  that  constitute  the  Mere 
prime  requisite  in  the  student's  theoJog-  Specialism, 
ical  furnishing.  Mere  specialism  is,  from  its  very 
nature,  both  narrow  and  superficial.  In  many  in- 
stances the  ground  for  the  choice  of  such  specialism 
as  a  subject  of  study  is  to  be  found  in  the  egotism  of 
the  young  man  and  his  ambition  to  occupy  a  posi- 
tion for  which  he  has  not  the  breadth  to  qualify  him, 
and  which  he  can  only  gain  through  some  specialty. 
Such  men,  outside  their  specialties,  are  mere  novices, 
and  are  sure  speedily  to  become  vain  and  puffed  up  by 
comparison  of  themselves  with  others  who  have  not 
given  attention  to  these  specialties,  which  to  them 
constitute  all  scientific  knowledge.  Trained  in  this 
way  in  a  mere  specialty,  perhaps  in  a  secularized  Ger- 
man institution,  the  man  enters  upon  his  work  without 
any  logical,  philosophical,  or  theological  knowledge 
or  perspective  ;  without  any  conception,  adequate  or 
inadequate,  of  the  nature  and  aim  of  the  sacred  call- 


176     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

ing  of  the  preacher;  with  incorrect  notions  of  the 
objects  for  which  theological  seminaries  were  founded, 
and  without  anything  of  the  strong  man  or  the  Chris- 
tian manhood  back  of  the  specialist  that  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  give  proper  aim  and  direction  and  moral 
and  spiritual  weight  to  his  teachings. 

Such  men  form  a  striking  contrast  with  the  broad- 
minded,  evangelical  men — like  Henry  B.  Smith  and 
Charles  Hodge  and  Alvah  Hovey,  and  the  many  others 
— who  have  graced  and  honored  such  positions  in  the 
past  history  of  the  Church.  All  that  is  necessary  to 
make  a  theological  seminary  utterly  worthless  for  the 
main  purpose — perhaps  we  ought  to  say  for  the  07ie 
purpose — of  its  existence,  is  to  fill  its  chairs  with  such 
exclusive  specialists. 

Along  with  the  other  two  features  already  noticed, 
there  seems  to  be  a  tendency  to  an  increasing  neglect 
Neelect  of      ^^  \.\\'Si^  constructive  work  and  training 
Constructive    that  should  be  a  constant  aim  in  institu- 
Thinking.      tions  for  the  training  of  preachers. 
The  chief  work,    intellectual  and  practical,   of  the 
preacher  must  always  be  constructive  work.     The  dis- 
position to  exhaust  the  time  of  study  in  barren  critical 
work,  often  purely  destructive — in  short,  in  all  kinds 
of  work  that  cultivates  merely  the  perceptive  powers 
in   gathering  minutiae,   and  the  memory  in  retaining 
them — has  been  the  bane  of  our  educational  system  in 
these  recent  times,  and  is  largely  the  product  of  the 
specialism   and    Germanism   already   considered.      In 
our  public-school  system,    the  introduction    of   innu- 
merable subjects  into  the   course   of  study,   and  the 
requirement  of  a  smattering  of  knowledge  of   each, 
have  already  gone  far  toward  transforming  the  schools 
into  dull,  dead  machines,  and   have  called   forth  the 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  177 

reprobation  of  the  best  educators.  The  same  thing 
can  not  fail  to  be  noted  in  the  curriculum  of  some  of 
the  theological  schools.  So  many  subsidiary  branches 
have  been  added  that  only  the  minimum  of  time  is  left 
for  study  and  mental  effort  upon  the  great  subjects  of 
the  Bible  and  theology  in  their  relations  to  preaching. 
And  in  many  cases,  because  of  their  newness,  and 
because  of  the  lack  of  perspective  in  the  view  of  those 
who  represent  them,  these  purely  subordinate  topics 
have  been  made  to  overshadow  and  almost  to  eliminate 
from  the  course,  in  the  case  of  many  a  student,  the 
great  and  all-important  ones. 

Apart  from  all  its  other  defects,  this  method  is 
educationally  most  vicious;  unfitting  rather  than  fit- 
ting the  theological  student  for  the  work  constructive 
of  the  preacher.  It  is  true,  no  doubt,  Training 
that  there  should  be  men  and  instructors  Essential, 
who  have  been  specially  trained  in  these  subordinate 
subjects;  for,  so  far  as  they  are  involved  in  the  apolo- 
getic work  of  the  Church,  they  must  be  understood. 
But  it  is  true  also  that  such  men  are  not  needed  in 
great  numbers,  since  the  questions  to  be  settled,  in 
connection  with  such  departments,  do  not  turn  upon 
the  mere  knowledge  of  the  specialists,  but  upon  the 
great  principles  of  logic,  and  especially  of  inductive 
logic,  of  which  the  specialists  are  often  quite  as  inno- 
cent as  new-born  babes.  It  is  also  true  that  such  spe- 
cialties can  only  be  studied,  with  safety  to  the  man  and 
profit  to  the  Church,  after  a  broad  foundation  in  logic 
and  philosophy  and  theology,  and  in  the  methods  of  sci- 
entific construction;  and  we  are  inclined  to  think  that 
they  should  be  provided  for  in  a  theological  university. 

The  one   great   need,   intellectually,    in  theological 
training  is  manifestly  the  constructive  study  and  work 


1 78    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

that  lead  the  man  to  grasp  things  in  their  broad  rela- 
tions and  prepare  the  preacher  to  present  them  to  men 
in  such  relations.  In  short,  the  practical  training  of 
the  constructive  faculty  of  the  preacher  is  the  supreme 
thing  for  him  intellectually. 

Now,  the  rational  method  of  training  the  construct- 
ive faculty  is  the  same  as  that  of  training  any  other 
power — that  is,  by  intelligently,  systematically,  and 
abundantly  exercising  that  power.  The  exercise  must 
be  intelligent;  for  this  infinite  beating  about  the  bush 
in  the  dark  and  for  nothing,  is  worse  than  useless;  it 
is  positively  harmful.  The  teacher  must  know  the 
power  and  its  possibilities  and  laws,  and  direct  his 
work  accordingly.  It  must  be  systematic,  for  only  by 
system  can  the  maximum  of  results  be  reached  with 
the  minimum  of  effort.  The  procedure  must  be  from 
the  simple  to  the  complex,  from  the  lower  part  to  the 
higher  part,  until  the  whole  field  is  intelligently  com- 
passed, and  that  completeness  must  be  the  goal  clearly 
in  view  from  the  beginning.  The  exercise  must  be 
abundant,  taking  in  the  whole  work  and  period  of 
education.  The  bee,  building  his  cell  by  instinct, 
reaches  perfection  unconsciously  on  the  first  trial;  the 
man,  building  his  structures  by  reason,  must  make 
progress  through  many  attempts  and  failures,  and 
approximate  perfection  only  as  the  result  of  innu- 
merable repetitions. 

Moreover  the  constructive  or  creative  method  must 
proceed  in  the  usual  twofold  rational  way  :  first,  by 
direction  in  studying  the  constructions  of  others  as 
constructions  ;  secondly,  by  training  the  student  to 
construct  for  himself,  and  both  these  educative  proc- 
esses must  be  pushed  along  the  three  lines  of  scien- 
tific, artistic,  and  practical  system. 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  179 

The  starting-point  in  this  training  is  in  the  study  of 
the  constructions  of  others  as  constructions.  This 
should  always  be  accompanied  with  constant  exercises 
in  construction.  Just  here  is  where  much  of  our  edu- 
cational work,  especially  in  our  higher  institutions, 
utterly  fails.  There  is  an  infinite  difference  between 
the  critical,  microscopic,  and  painful  study  that  char- 
acterizes the  present  methods,  in  which  there  is 
nothing  educative  in  any  high  sense;  and  the  large- 
minded  study  of  constructions,  as  such,  that  is  needed 
if  the  results  are  to  be  educative.  In  short,  a  radical 
change  of  the  methods  in  vogue,  especially  in  literary 
and  scientific  study,  is  demanded,  if  they  are  to  be 
made  the  means  of  securing  the  best  educational 
results.  This  is  peculiarly  called  for  in  theological 
training,  which  should  intelligently  aim  at  grasping 
each  book  in  the  Bible  as  a  whole,  in  the  light  of  the 
principle  that  Genesis  or  Job  or  Matthew  is  infinitely 
more  than  the  simple  sum  of  all  its  parts,  and  with  a 
full  understanding  of  the  relation  of  all  the  parts  to 
each  other,  and  to  the  one  central  theme  of  the  book 
as  a  whole;  while  it  aims  at  like  comprehension  of  the 
theological  system  involved  in  ''the  faith  once  deliv- 
ered to  the  saints." 

The  completion  of  the  work  of  developing  the  con- 
structive faculty  requires  the  constant  exercise  of  that 
faculty  in  the  actual  work  of  construction.  Every 
recitation,  and  every  exercise  in  a  course  of  study, 
may  be  made  an  exercise  of  this  power;  and  only  as 
they  are  so  made  is  study  transformed,  from  a  dead, 
dull  drudgery,  in  the  use  of  the  senses  or  memory,  or 
the  mere  logical  faculty,  into  a  joyous  and  free  activity 
that  leads  on  to  higher  effort  and  encourages  in  such 
effort. 


i8o     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

There  is  no  comprehension  of  any  great  subject  to 
be  had  without  such  constructive  study  and  training. 
Without  it  there  can  be  no  preparation  to  handle  such 
subjects.  But  such  constructive  study  and  exercise 
are  peculiarly  essential  in  training  the  preacher  to 
preach  the  Gospel.  Nothing  short  of  this  will  prepare 
men  for  the  direct,  free,  and  effective  preaching  so 
essential  for  reaching  the  masses.  The  increase  in 
the  number  of  studies  and  of  side  issues  in  our  seminary 
work  has  doubtless  strongly  tended  to  the  elimination 
of  that  constructive  work,  once  a  somewhat  prom- 
inent factor  in  those  institutions.  Correct  educa- 
tional method  requires  that  there  should  be  a  return 
to  it — nay  more,  that  the  chief  intellectual  energy  of 
the  student  in  his  work  should  be  made  to  take  this 
direction. 

If  that  better  preparation,  needed  by  the  new  order 
of  the  ministry  called  for  in  the  present  crisis,  is  to  be 
had  by  the  Church,  it  must  be  by  securing  a  training 
better  than  the  present  and  different  from  it  mainly  in 
the  respects  that  have  just  been  emphasized. 

IV.    A   More   Complete   Special   Furnishing   in 
Knowledge  and  Oratorical  Skill. 

It  is  equally  true  that  the  preacher  in  this  age  has 
need  of  a  more  complete  furnishing  in  the  special 
knowledge  and  qualifications  required  in  carrying  out 
his  commission. 

Such  discussions  as  the  present  always  presuppose 
general  scholarship,  knowledge  of  the  original  Scrip- 
tures, acquaintance  with  literature,  general  science, 
etc.  But  the  preacher  needs,  besides  these,  such  a 
thorough  furnishing  for  the  work,  especially  with  the 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  l8l 

material  of  that  field  of  truth  with  which  he  has  chiefly 
to  do,  as  shall  force  the  world  to  cease  its  scoffing  at 
the  Bible  as  obsolete,  and  at  the  utterances  of  the  pul- 
pit as  weak  and  worthless. 

There  is  undoubtedly  demanded  of  the  preacher  of 
the  present  day,  especially  of  the  preacher  who  ad- 
dresses the  more  intelligent  audiences  in  in  Science 
the  great  centers  of  thought,  a  thorough  and  PMlosopliy. 
furnishing  in  the  great  principles  of  science  and  phi- 
losophy. These  subjects  are  obviously  connected  most 
intimately  with  the  great  Biblical  and  religious  prob- 
lems that  are  common  to  the  pulpit  in  all  ages.  More- 
over, the  present  evil  condition  of  the  world,  which 
the  preacher  is  called  upon  to  remedy, — the  abounding 
secularism  and  anarchism, — is  the  result  of  false  teach- 
ing in  science  and  philosophy  that  he  can  not  hope  to 
counteract  without  first  understanding  it.  The  air  is 
so  full  of  it,  literature  is  so  saturated  with  it,  life  so 
pervaded  by  it,  and  all  industrial,  social,  and  political 
problems  so  bound  up  with  it,  that  he  can  scarcely 
come  in  contact  with  a  human  being  on  the  street,  or 
broach  a  subject  in  familiar  conversation,  or  deal  with 
a  common  issue  in  the  pulpit,  without  having  the  re- 
sults of  such  false  teaching  forced  upon  his  attention 
and  consideration,  by  finding  that  it  has  prejudiced 
men  against  his  message,  or  incapacitated  them  men- 
tally for  understanding  the  truth  of  God. 

Written  sermons,  with  frequent  changes  of  parish 
and  reversals  of  the  barrel,  have,  as  we  take  it,  often 
been  destructive  of  intellectual  life  and  activity  among 
the  clergy,  in  these  later  times,  and  in  the  various 
denominations.  There  is  at  present  a  reasonable  and 
just  demand,  on  the  part  of  the  Church,  for  an  increase 
in  substantial  breadth  and  vigor  of  manhood,  in  mental 


i82     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

acuteness  and  grasp,  and  in  alertness  and  enterprise  in 
action,  in  those  who  claim  the  leading  places  as  the 
teachers  and  molders  of  society.  Other  men  are  every- 
where awake  and  alive,  full  of  activity  and  enterprise, 
in  science,  in  philosophy,  in  business,  in  pleasure- 
seeking  ;  this  is  no  time  for  the  man  in  the  pulpit  to 
sleep.  He  needs  to  keep  abreast  of  the  age  on  all 
the  grand  issues,  and  to  be  able  to  measure  strength 
with  the  strongest,  knowledge  with  the  profoundest, 
wisdom  with  the  wisest,  if  need  be,  on  all  the  great 
theoretical  and  practical  questions,  if  he  is  to  hold  his 
place  for  God  and  truth. 

And  be  it  said  without  fear  of  contradiction,  there  is 
no  position  or  calling  so  favorable  as  the  ministry  for 
grappling  with  and  mastering  the  great  fundamental 
doctrines  of  science  and  philosophy.  There  is  no 
place  in  modern  life  where  there  is  such  constant  call 
for  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  these  principles. 
True,  the  preacher  is  not  to  preach  science  or  phi- 
losophy ;  but  he  must  have  a  large  and  firm  grasp  of 
their  principles,  if  he  is  to  deal  successfully  with  the 
men  whom  he  meets  on  the  streets  every  day,  to  whom 
he  preaches  on  the  Sabbath,  and  for  whose  souls  he  is 
responsible.  He  will  find  that  erroneous  views  regard- 
ing both  science  and  philosophy,  and  most  of  the 
questions  connected  with  them,  have  found  their  way 
into  all  the  forms  and  phases  of  modern  thought,  lit- 
erature, and  life.  He  will  have  opinions  of  John 
Stuart  Mill,  of  Herbert  Spencer,  of  Matthew  Arnold, 
of  Professor  Tyndall,  thrust  at  him  every  day,  with 
confident  assurance,  by  those  who  will  take  it  for 
granted  that  the  assertions  of  these  scientific  dogma- 
tists are  unanswerable  and  boast  that  they  are  so, 
unless  they  are  fairly  brought  to  book  and  answered. 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  183 

Let  the  man  of  God  present  these  modern  apostles 
and  their  new  gospel  in  all  their  shallowness,  and  faith 
in  them  will  die. 

Mr.  Mill  wrote  with  amazing  confidence,  and  with 
an  appearance  of  candor  that  enabled  him  to  rule  the 
opinions  of  vast  numbers  of  so-called  educated  men 
in  the  last  generation  with  absolute  tyranny.  It  may 
become  necessary  for  the  preacher  to  show,  as  Profes- 
sor Jevons  has  shown  it,  that,  in  one  way  or  another, 
the  intellect  of  this  modern  Sir  Oracle  was  wrecked; 
that  his  mind  was  essentially  illogical  ;  that  his  text 
can  never  be  safely  interpreted  by  the  context,  because 
there  is  no  certainty  that  in  his  writings  the  same  line 
of  thought  will  be  maintained  for  two  consecutive 
sentences  ;  that  there  is  nothing  in  logic  that  he  has 
not  touched,  and  that  he  has  touched  nothing  without 
confusing  it;  that  he  has  never  advocated  any  false 
principles  in  his  works  which  he  has  not  himself  either 
amply  refuted  or  furnished  the  materials  for  refuting, 
and  that  without  knowing  it.  Let  this  be  shown  to  the 
men  who  worship  Mill  instead  of  the  only  true  God, 
and  they  will  speedily  be  silenced,  and  become  agnos- 
tics or  skeptics  on  the  point  of  Mill's  deity  ! 

He  will  hear  Herbert  Spencer  called  by  his  admirers 
the  ''Apostle  of  the  Understanding,"  and  exalted 
above  Aristotle.  It  may  be  necessary  to  show  up  the 
beauties  of  this  apostle.  It  is  an  easy  matter.  He  is 
a  very  acrobat  of  logic.  In  the  opening  of  his  First 
Principles  he  demonstrates,  to  his  own  satisfaction, 
the  impossibility  of  the  theistic  theory  of  the  universe, 
of  the  theory  of  self-creation,  and  of  that  of  eternal 
existence,  because  they  involve  the  idea  of  self- 
existence,  which  is  unthinkable  as  implying  infinity; 
in  the  concluding  portions  of  the  same  discussion,  he 


184    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

teaches  that  **  the  fundamental  verity,"  whatever  that 
may  be,  which  is  to  take  the  place  of  God,  involves  the 
same  unthinkable  idea  of  self-existence,  and  yet  is  not 
only  possible  but  actual,  and  the  basis  of  all  philoso- 
phy. In  his  writings  on  general  philosophy,  he  scouts 
all  intuitions,  all  necessary  truths,  as  absurdities  ;  and 
yet,  in  his  subsequent  writings,  proceeds  to  build  his 
Special  Philosophy  upon  these  very  intuitions!  Or  let 
the  preacher  show  up — as  may  easily  be  done — Mr. 
Spencer's  latest  feat  in  reducing  all  ethics  to  the  ethics 
of  bestiality,  having  no  foundation  but  the  two  animal 
instincts  of  self-preservation  and  reproduction  of  the 
species.  Something  of  this  kind,  in  the  way  of  clear 
thinking  and  accurate  definition,  assuredly  needs  to  be 
done  by  the  pulpit,  at  proper  times  and  places,  to  stay 
the  Spencerian  and  evolution  craze  that  has  swept  even 
such  a  man  as  Professor  Drummond  into  the  quagmire 
of  materialism,  unconsciously  to  himself,  while  leading 
him  to  pose,  and  Christian  assemblies  to  let  him  pose, 
as  the  lion  of  the  day. 

It  is  easy  to  show,  and  has  been  abundantly  shown 
by  the  ablest  men  in  Great  Britain,  that  when  that 
apostle  of  the  new  science,  Professor  Tyndall,  at- 
tempted anything  outside  of  his  own  narrow  sphere  of 
experimental  physics,  there  is  no  end  to  the  absurdi- 
ties into  which  he  rushed.  Nothing,  for  example, 
could  be  more  absurd  than  his  famous  demand  made 
some  years  ago  at  Belfast.  While  insisting  upon  the 
experimental  method,  and  making  experience  the  only 
source  of  knowledge  and  its  limit,  he  was  able  to  per- 
form that  astonishing  scientific  feat  of  prolonging  his 
vision  by  experie?ice  infinitely  beyo}id  the  bounds  of  experi- 
ence^ and  to  discern  in  what  he  called  matter  the  prom- 
ise and  potency  of  all  life — a  feat  compared  with  which 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  185 

seeing  through  a  mill-stone  is  mere  child's  play !  And 
immediately  following  this  came  his  demand,  that 
theologians  and  philosophers  should  submit  all  their 

"  religious  theories,  schemes,  and  systems,  that  embrace  notions  of 
cosmogony,  or  that  otherwise  reacli  into  its  domains,  ...  to 
the  control  of  science,  and  relinquish  all  thought  of  controlling  it." 

How  monumentally  arrogant  all  this,  and  yet  how 
absurdly  innocent  of  the  relations  of  science  and 
philosophy ! 

The  preacher  will  have  Huxley's  great  accomplish- 
ments and  victories  paraded  before  him,  and  will  be 
helped  by  a  knowledge  of  his  defects  and  limitations. 
Many  accidents  favored  his  quest  for  fame,  but  cer- 
tain essential  drawbacks  prevented  him  from  attaining 
a  high  place  in  either  exact  science  or  philosophy. 
Like  Spencer  and  Tyndall,  he  did  not  receive  in  his 
early  years  a  liberal  education,  and  the  conditions  of 
his  later  life  were  such  as  to  preclude  his  remedying 
this  defect;  so  that  he  had  only  a  showy,  superficial, 
**  pick-up"  knowledge  of  theology,  philosophy,  litera- 
ture, in  fact  of  the  whole  broad  range  of  special  knowl- 
edge opened  to  the  scholar  by  such  a  liberal  education. 
Like  Darwin  and  Spencer  and  Tyndall,  he  was  lacking 
in  real  logical  acumen,  and  had  no  command  of  that 
exact  logical  and  scientific  method  for  which  the  higher 
spheres  of  science  and  philosophy  call.  His  brilliant 
literary  qualities  of  which  so  much  has  been  made, 
and  his  absolute  mastery  of  the  sneer  and  of  brazen 
assertion,  certainly  do  not  entitle  the  opinions  of  the 
inventor  and  populizer  of  the  term  ** agnostic"  to 
weigh  very  heavily  at  the  bar  of  reason. 

The  truth  is,  these  men,  by  starting  out  with  the  fun- 
damental denial  of  what  we  know  best  of  all  things, — 


1 86     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

the  existence  and  living  activity  of  the  thinking  spirit, 
— and  by  making  all  possible  shifts  to  maintain  this 
utterly  unreasonable  denial,  stultified  themselves, 
and  committed  logical  hari  kari.  Or,  if  anything 
more  is  wanting,  their  advance  to  the  denial  of  the 
Supreme  Mind — to  be  seen  working  everywhere  around 
us,  and  for  believing  in  which  we  have  the  same  logi- 
cal reason  that  we  have  for  believing  that  our  neighbor 
exists,  and  no  more  reason  for  denying  or  doubting 
than  we  have  for  denying  or  doubting  our  neighbor's 
spirituality  and  personality — completes  the  stultifica- 
tion and  the  self-destruction.  By  the  time  the  man 
reaches  that  point  there  is  no  logic  left  in  him,  as 
there  is  none  to  begin  with  in  the  men  who  blindly 
follow  him. 

The  preacher  who,  in  the  great  centers  of  intelli- 
gence, is  to  stem  this  tide  of  egotism  and  shallowness, 

Must  Know    that  is  bearing  such  multitudes  to  perdi- 

Principles.  tion,  needs  to  understand  the  founda- 
tions of  things,  the  principles  of  things,  and  to  be  a 
master  in  them,  for  the  truth's  sake  and  for  humanity's 
sake.     Without  this  he  can  not  succeed. 

A  firm  grasp  also  of  the  main  principles  of  exact 
science  will  aid  the  preacher  greatly  in  his  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Scripture,  so  far  as  their  teachings  are 
related  to  the  sciences.  The  unfolding  and  illustra- 
tion of  the  principles  of  geology,  by  such  men  as 
Hugh  Miller,  Edward  Hitchcock,  Arnold  Guyot, 
James  D.  Dana,  and  Principal  Dawson,  will  make 
marvelously  luminous  important  portions  of  the  Word 
of  God  that  would  otherwise  be  misunderstood  or 
only  partially  understood;  as,  for  example,  the  open- 
ing portions  of  the  Book  of  Genesis.  Such  knowledge 
will,  at  the  same  time,  guard  the  messenger  of  God 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING,  187 

against  the  assumptions  and  assertions  of  *' science 
falsely  so  called." 

A  better  and  firmer  grasp  of  the  fundamentals  of 
psychology  and  philosophy  is  even  more  important  to 
the  preacher.  His  view  of  the  will,  for  example,  must 
decide  his  view  of  morality  and  virtue,  and  the  nature 
of  regeneration  and  conversion,  and  it  will  determine 
the  general  type  of  his  theology.  His  ethical  views 
will  shape  his  theological  tendencies,  decide  whether 
they  shall  be  in  the  direction  of  eudemonism  and  uni- 
versalism,  or  in  the  direction  of  essential  morality  and 
particularism.  In  short,  no  theology  is  possible  with- 
out its  underlying  and  molding  theories  of  psychology 
and  philosophy.  If  the  preacher  has  accurate  views 
on  these  subjects,  they  will  furnish  him  a  solid  basis 
for  correct  thinking  and  sound  teaching,  and  they  will 
put  him  on  his  guard  against  the  innumerable  popular 
and  delusive  errors  of  the  day. 

If  his  view  of  the  fundamentals  regarding  the  nature 
of  man,  of  the  universe,  and  of  God,  is  correct,  he  will 
be  in  no  danger  of  being  carried  away  by  the  Zeitgeist^ 
or  popular  drift  of  the  hour,  and  of  ignoring  the  ewig- 
Zeitgeist^  or  the  eternal  and  unchangeable  trend  of 
things.  Without  such  view,  even  if  he  has  a  theology 
based  upon  the  plain  language  of  the  Scriptures,  that 
theology  is  liable  to  be  merely  a  misinterpretation  of 
Scriptures,  absurdly  false  and  utterly  harmful. 

There  is,  therefore,  scarcely  anything  more  essential, 
by  way  of  preliminary  furnishing  to  the  preacher  of 
this  age,  than  a  firmer  mental  grip  on  a  common-sense 
and  natural  psychology  and  philosophy.  And  this  is 
especially  true  in  the  American  Church,  in  which  the 
theological  views  and  discussions  have  always  had 
their  root,   so  largely,  in  the  views  of  human  nature 


i88     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

and  its  workings  and  of  the  principles  that  transcend 
human  experience. 

The  minister  called  and  sent  of  God  should  see  to 
it  that  he  is  thoroughly  furnished  for  this  aspect  of 
his  work.  He  is  called  to  save  the  world  from  this 
shallow  atheistic  scientism  and  skepticism,  and  this 
can  not  be  done  without  special  furnishing  for  the 
work. 

A  demand,  certainly  no  less  pressing,  is  made  upon 

the  preacher  of  to-day,  for  a  more  thorough  Biblical 

2.  Special  Bib-    furnishing,  to  help  him  stem  the  tide  of 

Ileal  Knowledge,  unbelief  and   scoffing,  so  far  as  that  is 

directed  against  the  Word  of  God. 

There  are  three  points  of  view  from  which  the 
minister  of  the  present  and  the  future  must  be  master 
Three  Points  ^^  ^^^^  Bible,  in  order  to  attain  to  any 
of  View.  such  success  as  is  demanded  by  the  com- 
mission Christ  has  given  him,  and  to  any  such  effi- 
ciency as  is  required  by  the  difficult  conditions  under 
which  his  work  as  a  preacher  must  be  done. 

He   must   master  the  Bible   as   the  Book  of   God, 

having  essential  unity  of    theme,   of  aim,   of   trend, 

/.s  mi-   «.i-i     and    of    plan.       Men    often     object    to 
(1)  The  Bible  ^  ■" 

as  the  Book  of  the    Bible,    or    neglect   it,    because   the 
®°*'  pulpit    has    given    them    so    little   real 

knowledge  of  it.  The  method,  so  long  and  widely  in 
vogue  among  preachers,  of  taking  a  single  verse  or 
clause  from  the  Scriptures,  severed  from  all  its  con- 
nections with  the  context,  and  then  drawing  from  it  a 
topic  even  more  remote  from  Scriptural  connection, 
and  often  indeed  having  nothing  to  do  with  the  Scrip- 
tures, is  obviously  not  fitted  to  give  the  hearers  very 
much  knowledge  of  the  Bible.  Ten  thousand  such 
sermons  may  be  listened  to,  and  yet  the  listener  gain 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING.  189 

from  them  no  conception  whatever  of  the  Book  or 
God.  But  even  if  the  theme  drawn  from  the  text  is  a 
Scriptural  theme,  and  its  treatment  a  Scriptural  treat- 
ment, the  knowledge  of  the  Bible  given  by  it  may  still 
be  exceedingly  limited  and  superficial.  The  book  or 
literary  production  that  has  any  unity  and  breadth  of 
thought  in  it  expresses,  as  a  whole,  vastly  more  than  is 
expressed  by  all  its  fragments  considered  apart  from 
their  connection  as  a  whole.  The  Books  of  Scriptures 
have  each  of  them  their  plan  and  their  unity  of  truth 
and  thought.     Archdeacon  Farrar  recently  said :  * 

"  Out  of  the  many  thousands  of  sermons  which  are  weekly  and  some- 
times even  daily  delivered  in  England,  it  is  I  think  very  desirable 
that  some  should  be  devoted  to  the  scope  and  meaning  of  the  Books  of 
Scripture,  rather  than  to  its  separate  texts.  By  thus  doing  we  can  as 
it  were  kneel  down  to  drink  of  the  pure  stream  as  it  bursts  from  the 
living  rock.  The  Bible  teaches  us  its  best  lessons  when  we  search 
its  teachings  as  wise  and  humble  learners  ;  when  we  judge  of  it  by 
the  truths  which  we  learn  from  it,  not  by  the  prejudices  and  pre- 
possessions which  we  bring  to  it  ;  when  we  seek  in  it  the  elements 
and  bases,  not  when  we  go  to  it  for  proof-texts  of  doctrines  which  we 
already  hold." 

The  preacher  should  be  master  of  the  Books  of  the 
Bible,  as  they  appear  in  their  completeness  on  the 
sacred  pages.  He  should  also  be  master  of  the  Bible 
as  a  whole,  as  the  Book  of  God,  the  one  complete, 
consistent  revelation  of  God's  plan  of  redemption  for 
a  lost  world.  It  is  not  enough  that  he  should  under- 
stand the  original  languages,  and  be  able  to  read  the 
Bible  fluently  in  those  languages;  not  enough  that  he 
should  study  all  about  the  Bible,  all  around  the  Bible, 
or  all  through  the  Bible,  creeping  on  his  way  through 
the  verses,  as  the   worm   creeps  blindly  on  its  way 

*  The  Message  of  the  Books. 


190      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

through  the  grass  and  tangle.  He  should  study  the 
Bible  itself,  as  one  great  complete  thought  of  God. 
He  should  study  it  and  grasp  it  as  a  whole,  in  relation 
to  its  great  center.  He  should  master  it  in  its  every 
book,  until  every  book  is  understood  in  itself  and  in 
its  relation  to  the  whole  Bible.  He  should  study  it 
throughout  grammatically,  logically,  prayerfully,  by 
the  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  until  it  becomes  a  living 
book,  quick  and  powerful  in  all  its  range  of  revealed 
truth  and  fact. 

Such  study  has  its  place  above  all  mere  human 
theology.  It  is  infinitely  more  important  than  all  our 
mere  philosophy.  It  will  help  the  preacher  more  in 
his  work  of  answering  objections  than  all  his  knowl- 
edge of  science  and  of  human  investigations  and 
speculations.  In  truth,  to  most  of  the  objections 
brought  against  it  and  its  religion,  the  Bible  is  its 
own  best  answer.  Such  objections  are  largely  based 
upon  misconceptions  of  its  character  or  its  teachings. 
The  preacher,  in  such  cases,  has  only  to  let  its  light 
shine  and  the  darkness  will  be  dissipated.  His  su- 
preme aim  in  this  regard  should  be  to  help  his  hearers 
to  come  to  see  the  Word  of  God  as  it  is  in  itself.  When 
he  has  succeeded  in  doing  this,  God  may  be  trusted  to 
take  care  of  the  ordinary  objections,  and  to  make  the 
Word  by  his  Holy  Spirit  a  saving  power. 

The  second  point  of  view,  from  which  the  preacher 
of  this  age  needs  to  grasp  the  Word  of  God,  is  as 

(2)  The  Bible  a  theological  system.  The  Bible  teach- 
Theology.  ing  should  be  grasped,  by  the  preacher, 
in  a  living  system  of  theology  that,  in  its  naturalness 
and  completeness,  shall  confound  the  skeptic  and  the 
scoffer.  Doubtless  one  of  the  reasons  for  the  cry  of 
the  age  against  theology  is  that  the  preachers  and  the 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  I9I 

people  have  had  so  little  living  theology  from  the 
Bible.  The  result  of  the  attempt  in  our  theological 
seminaries  to  get  everything  into  three  so-called 
years,  each  of  which  is  only  half  a  year  long,  has 
been  that  men  inevitably  get  next  to  nothing  on  any 
of  all  the  almost  innumerable  subjects  presented. 
Probably  not  even  a  quarter  of  the  time  once  devoted 
to  theology  is  now  devoted  to  that  subject.  Often 
the  number  of  theologians,  that  is,  of  those  who  take 
some  special  interest  in  theology,  in  a  class  of  fifty 
young  men,  may  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one 
hand;  and  sometimes  the  number  is  even  less  than 
that.  The  result  is  that  the  preacher,  in  his  training 
period,  fails  to  get  such  grasp  of  this  greatest  of 
sciences  as  will  give  it  an  interest  to  himself;  and  so 
he  must  of  course  fail  of  the  ability  to  infuse  into 
it  any  interest  for  his  hearers.  Having  failed  to 
grasp  the  great  system  of  divine  truth,  in  its  relations 
and  harmonies,  it  can  be  to  him  only  a  skeleton  of  dry 
bones,  which,  like  the  bones  in  the  prophet's  vision, 
are  *' very  dry."  No  wonder  that  when  "Dry 
the  attempt  is  made  to  present  the-  Theology." 
ology  on  such  a  basis  of  knowledge — or  rather  of 
ignorance — men  cry  out  against  '^  dry  theology,"  and 
insist  that  they  want  no  more  of  it!  It  is  the  lack  of 
theology  that  is  the  matter  with  the  preaching,  and 
against  which  the  people  protest,  and  against  which 
they  are  right  in  protesting.  One  of  the  most  popular 
preachers  in  America  to-day,  for  intelligent  people,  is 
a  man  who  deals  exclusively  in  the  great  theological 
themes,  and  whose  sermons  never  weary  his  hearers, 
even  tho  they  reach  into  the  second  hour.  The 
preacher  of  the  present  time  needs  especially  a  living 
system  of   theology.     The   preacher   who  is  able   to 


192     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry, 

marshal  a  system  of  Bible  truth  about  Christ  cruci- 
fied, so  as  to  find  a  place  for  everything  and  so  as  to 
let  everything  fall  into  its  place,  will  have  a  system 
full  of  interest  for  men  and  mighty  in  its  saving  power 
over  men. 

The  third  point  of  view,  from  which  the  preacher 

needs   to   master   the  Word   of   God,  is  that  of  the 

C8)  The  Bible    P^*^ctical  bearing  of  its  doctrines  upon 

as  Practical  human  interests  and  upon  the  great 
Truth.  questions  of  human  life  and  conduct  and 
destiny.  He  needs  to  master  it  as  practical  truth,  in 
all  its  relations  to  time  and  to  eternity. 

Doubtless  one  reason  for  the  outcry  against  the- 
ology, from  the  pew  and  from  the  pulpit,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  unpractical  method  of  presenting  the 
doctrines  of  the  Word  of  God.  The  starting-point  in 
the  preacher's  working-system  should  be  found  in 
something  that  comes  home  to  men  and  lays  hold 
upon  them  with  power.  Theological  truth  is  essen- 
tially practical  truth.  Practical  truth  is  truth  that  has 
relation  to  man's  feelings  and  desires,  and  through 
these  lays  hold  upon  his  will  and  calls  him  to  choice, 
purpose,  and  action.  The  great  doctrines  of  the  Word 
of  God  have  this  practical  bearing,  when  properly  pre- 
sented. They  are  not  like  mere  mathematical  axioms 
or  formulas.  The  omniscience  of  God  may  be  pre- 
sented in  such  abstract  way  that  a  man  may  never 
think  of  it  in  its  relation  to  himself;  but  that  is  not 
the  Biblical  way,  nor  the  practical  theological  way  of 
presenting  it.  Properly  viewed,  the  doctrine  brings 
the  sinner  into  the  very  presence  of  Jehovah,  and 
opens  all  his  soul  and  life  to  the  God  with  whom  he 
has  to  do  in  this  world  and  before  whom  he  must  stand 
at  the  judgment  bar.     It  is  this  practical  relation  and 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  193 

bearing  that  give  to  theology  its  living  and  unfailing 
interest  to  men.  Especially  is  this  true  of  its  relation 
to  salvation. 

In  short,  the  Bible,  which  furnishes  all  valuable 
theology  that  has  any  bearing  upon  salvation,  is  an 
intensely  practical  book.  Its  doctrines  xi^e  Bible 
of  creation,  providence,  original  sin.  Practical, 
incarnation,  and  redemption  are — as  elsewhere  indi- 
cated— the  divine  answers  to  the  great  questions  that  no 
man  can  fail  to  ask  himself:  Whence  came  I  ?  Upon 
whom  can  I  depend  ?  Whence  the  evil  in  the  world  ? 
Is  there  any  way  of  escape  ?  What  is  that  way  ?  These 
questions  have  to  do  principally,  not  with  man's  im- 
aginations, not  with  his  logic  good  or  bad,  not  with 
his  taste  rude  or  cultivated,  but  with  life  and  death 
eternal.  The  Bible  appeals  to  practical  instincts,  is 
adapted  to  practical  needs,  appeals  to  practical  issues, 
puts  its  truths  in  concrete,  practical  shape.  Preaching 
that  does  not  appeal  to  such  practical  instincts,  that 
does  not  supply  such  pressing  needs,  that  does  not 
meet  such  living  issues,  that  does  not  put  itself  into 
such  direct  and  forceful  shape,  can  not  be  according 
to  the  standard  of  God's  Word.  The  truth  of  that 
Word  is  nodead  orthodoxy,  but  a  living  and  life-giving 
thing. 

The  preacher  needs  to  seize  with  special  clearness 

and  firmness  upon  the  broader  and  more  quickening 

views  of  the  lost  world  and  salvation,  as    _.    ,  „     , 

Vital  Truths, 
presented  in  the  Bible.     There  are  a  few 

grand    truths   that   stand   out   above   the   rest.     The 

preacher's  conviction  of  these  will  in  large  measure 

decide  his  efficiency  in  the  service  of  God.     They  are 

such  truths  as  these  :    the  lost  condition  and  eternal 

condemnation  of  man;  the  vicarious  death  of  the  God- 


194      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE   MINISTRY. 

man  for  his  salvation;  the  mission  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
to  apply  the  provisions  of  that  salvation;  the  Great 
Commission  to  the  lost  world;  the  stewardship  of  all 
Christians  under  God  for  the  ends  of  redemption;  a 
free  Gospel  for  the  masses  of  mankind;  the  tremen- 
dous earnestness  and  urgency  of  the  work,  while  a 
soul  perishes  with  every  throb  of  the  heart.  If  these 
momentous  divine  conceptions  could  be  burned  into 
the  soul  of  every  preacher,  there  would  speedily  result 
a  tide  of  holy  influence,  inspired  of  the  Bible,  that 
would  sweep  back  with  resistless  energy  the  swift  and 
strong  floods  of  godless  self-indulgence  and  world- 
liness. 

Let  it  then  be  emphasized  to  the  utmost — a  knowl- 
edge of  the  Bible  is  what  is  supremely  needed  in  the 
ministry  of  the  present  day — a  firm  grasp  of  its  divine 
structure  and  unity;  a  fast  hold  upon  its  theology 
viewed  from  the  cross;  a  quickening  sense  of  its  liv- 
ing, practical  doctrines.  That,  and  that  alone,  will 
save  the  ministry  from  the  laxity  in  doctrine  and  the 
maudlin  sentiment  that  come  to  us  from  so  many 
*' prominent  and  progressive  pulpits,"  and  from  the 
often-recurring  blush  for  the  easy-fitting  virtue  and 
criminal  neglect  of  souls  that  are  so  certain  to  accom- 
pany such  doctrine  and  sentiment. 

There  is  likewise  an  increasing  demand  upon  the 
preacher  of  this  age  for  a  better  oratorical  furnishing 

g  g  .  ,  for  his  work,  especially  for  the  power  of 
Power  to  direct  and  extemporaneous  preaching  of 
Preach.  ^^le  Word — in  short,  for  a  better  knowl- 
edge of,  and  skill  in,  preaching. 

There  is  doubtless  a  deepening  and  widening  con- 
viction on  this  point  among  those  who  have  to  do 
with  the  practical  work  of  reaching  men,  especially 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  I95 

of  reaching  the  masses.  Let  not  those  who  press  the 
claim  be  misunderstood.  For  the  work  of  saving  souls 
they  have  no  faith  in  the  mere  practise  of  rhetoric 
and  elocution;  none  in  the  '*  start  and  stare  theatric." 
But  they  are  convinced  that  there  is  a  power  of  free 
speech,  that  may  be  given  to  the  messenger  of  God, 
and  that  they  verily  believe  should  be  given  him. 
They  are  not  inclined  to  deny  that  there  may  possibly 
be  those  who  can  not  acquire  this  power  of  speech,  or 
that  circumstances  may  arise  in  which  it  may  be  better 
for  the  preacher  to  use  the  manuscript  sermon. 

But  the  command  of  the  Master  was,  *'  Go  preach  my 
Gospel."  The  Apostles  obeyed  it  2in6. preached^  as  did 
the  Master  himself.  The  primitive  Preaching  and 
Christians  obeyed  it.  The  great  reform-  Reading, 
ers  in  all  ages  have  obeyed  it.  In  seasons  of  awakened 
interest  men  who  are  trained  to  read  the  Gospel  obey 
the  command  of  Christ  2ind  preach  it.  In  all  ages  in 
which  the  power  of  Christianity  has  been  dominant, 
preaching  has  come  to  the  front.  It  is  by  the  **  fool- 
ishness of  preaching"  that  the  world  is  to  be  saved. 

Perhaps  none  can  appreciate  so  well  as  those  who 
have  been  trained  to  read  the  Gospel  the  infinite  differ- 
ence between  that  and  preaching  it.  But  the  conviction 
is  certainly  rising  everywhere  of  the  necessity  of  direct 
speech,  soul  to  soul,  eye  to  eye,  if  the  world  is  to  be 
saved.  The  men  who  have  the  power  to  reach  the 
masses  are  the  trained  and  skilful  preachers,  the 
Beechers,  the  Spurgeons,  the  Moodys,  the  Newman 
Halls.  Such  being  the  case,  it  should  be  one  of  the 
foremost  aims  of  all  our  institutions  of  learning — 
while  seeking  to  open  the  intellects  of  the  rising  min- 
istry and  fill  them  with  Biblical  truths,  and  while  train- 
ing them  to  practical  power  in  managing  affairs  and 


196    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

men  in  prosecuting  great  enterprises — to  train  them 
also  to  the  ready  command  of  clear,  powerful,  and 
polished  speech,  to  be  used  in  a  hand-to-hand  conflict 
for  the  rescue  of  souls.  And  there  is  little  doubt  that 
to  the  average  preacher  such  training  can  be  given,  if 
the  proper  constructive  and  creative  method  of  study 
and  discipline  is  made  use  of  in  such  institutions. 

But  whatever  may  be  said  of  reading  the  Gospel  for 

preachers   and    communities    made    up   of   intelligent 

Preacliinff  for  Christian  people,  nothing  is  clearer  than 

the  Masses,  that  the  poor  and  the  ignorant  can  not 
be  reached  with  a  read  Gospel  in  any  age.  A  clear- 
minded,  unprejudiced  man  must  see  that  cumbrous 
written  forms  are  never  suited  to  minds  of  this  class, 
and  that  they  are  peculiarly  unsuited  to  the  minds  of 
this  age.  Dr.  William  M.  Paxton  was  right  when 
he  said  :  * 

*'  The  long,  prolix,  syllogistic  statements  of  the  schoolmen  are 
surely  not  adapted  to  an  age  of  telegrams.  The  mental  conditions  of 
a  people  who  travel  in  a  stage-coach  at  the  rate  of  five  miles  an  hour 
must  differ  greatly  from  those  of  a  people  who  travel  in  a  railroad  car 
at  a  speed  of  forty  miles.  In  an  age  when  mind  is  intensely  active 
and  all  other  ideas  come  to  men  on  the  wing,  it  will  not  do  for  the 
truth  of  God  to  crawl  like  a  snail,  or  slumber  like  a  crow.  It  must 
fly  with  the  celerity  of  a  carrier-pigeon  to  bring  its  messages  to  men 
in  the  thick  of  life's  battle,  or  it  must  mount  like  an  eagle  to  command 
attention  and  to  carry  its  glad  tidings  upon  swift  wings  to  every 
corner  of  the  earth." 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that,  with  the  better  fur- 
nishing, in  the  directions  already  considered,  the  min- 
istry will  feel  more  and  more  constrained  to  acquire 
this  power  of  free  and  direct  speech,  to  be   used  as 

*  "  Address  at  the  inauguration  of  Archibald  Alexander  Hodge  as 
professor  of  theology,  in  Princeton  Theological  Seminary, " 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING.  I97 

the  most  effective  instrument  in  carrying   out  their 
commission. 

Without  such  thorough  furnishing  for  the  work  the 
preacher  may  not  expect  to  overtake  this  age  of  steam 
and  Hghtning  ;  with  it,  with  God's  help  and  inspira- 
tion, we  have  the  means  suited — rationally  at  least — 
to  the  end  of  bringing  the  world  to  heed  the  Gospel. 
Given  this  better  intellectual  and  scholarly  equipment, 
this  firmer  grip  of  the  Bible  with  its  glorious  living 
theology  and  practical  life-and-death  truth,  and  given 
this  command  of  the  power  to  bear  the  message  of  God 
right  home  to  men  by  living  speech — and  there  may 
be  expected,  with  the  divine  quickening  and  a  new 
consecration,  and  devotion,  the  speedy  hushing  and 
confounding  of  all  the  boastful  and  scoffing  secularism 
and  atheism,  and  a  new  and  healthful  atmosphere  in 
which  the  coming  generation  may  live  and  accomplish 
its  task. 

V.    A  More  Complete  Consecration. 

It  is  preeminently  true  that  in  this  age  the  preacher 
needs  a  more  complete  consecration  to  the  work  for 
which  he  holds  his  commission.  That  work  is  the 
saving  of  souls,  the  speedy  conquest  of  the  whole 
world  for  Christ,  incomparably  greater  than  all  other 
human  enterprises. 

In   order  to  the  accomplishment   of   this   there  is 
needed  an  awakened  sense  of  responsibility,  leading 
to  new  devotion,  such  as  the  professional    ^   Quickened 
preacher  has  never  dreamed  of,  and  re-     Sense  of  Re- 
sulting in  spiritual  efforts  and  enterprises     sponsibility. 
such  as  the  most  consecrated  has  not  thought  to  be 
within  the  reach  of  possibility. 


198     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

The  world  too  often  makes  mock  of  the  lack  of 
devotion  in  the  ministry  of  the  day.  It  is  justified 
in  doing  so.  It  is  a  fact  established  by  history 
that,  from  time  to  time  the  ministry,  along  with 
the  Church,  falls  into  spiritual  decline,  needs  to  be 
roused  anew  to  a  sense  of  its  solemn  mission.  From 
time  to  time  God  sends  his  special  messengers  to  rouse 
them  anew.  So  Gildas  came  to  our  forefathers  in 
Britain,  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries;  so  Wyclif,  in 
the  fourteenth  century ;  so  John  Knox,  in  the  sixteenth ; 
so  Baxter  and  Owen  and  Bunyan,  in  the  seventeenth; 
so  Whitefield  and  Wesley  and  Edwards  and  Brainerd, 
in  the  eighteenth;  and  so  came  the  noble  men,  who 
pushed  the  revival  and  Bible  and  mission  work  at  the 
beginning  of  the  present  century,  and  who  have  been 
its  later  representatives,  the  Paysons  and  Judsons  and 
Duffs  and  Livingstones.  So  now  there  is  a  pressing 
need  of  some  messenger  of  God  to  awaken  and  renew 
a  sense  of  the  preacher's  responsibility. 

In  165 1  the  Church  of  Scotland,  feeling  in  regard 
to  her  ministers   "how  deep  their  hand  was  in  the 

Confession      transgression,  and  that  ministers  had  no 

of  Church  of  small  occasion  to  the  drawing  on  of  the 
Scotland.  judgments  that  were  upon  the  land," 
drew  up  what  was  called  a  complete  account  of  the 
sins  of  the  ministry.  The  document  is  a  searching 
one,  and  has  been  pronounced  "one  of  the  fullest, 
most  faithful  and  impartial  confessions  of  sins  ever 
made." 

In  his  Words  to  the  Winners  of  Souls^  Horatius 
Bonar  has  called  this  age  to  substantially  the  same 
confession.  The  confession  comes  home  to  all  the 
ministry.     It  runs  thus  : 

"  We  have  been  unfaithful."     "We  have  been  carnal 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS    FURNISHING.  I99 

and  unspiritual."  "We  have  been  selfish."  **  We  have 
been  slothful."  "We  have  been  cold."  "We  have 
been  timid."  "We  have  been  wanting  in  solemnity." 
"We  have  been  preaching  ourselves,  not  Christ." 
"We  have  used  words  of  man's  wisdom."  "We  have 
not  fully  preached  a  free  Gospel."  "We  have  not 
duly  studied  the  Word  and  honored  the  Spirit  of  God." 
"  We  have  had  little  of  the  mind  of  Christ." 

These  are  confessions  drawn  from  the  communion 
of  the  mightiest  souls  with  God — the  confessions  of 
Archbishop  Usher  and  Jonathan  Edwards  and  Row- 
land Hill,  of  Howe  and  Baxter  and  Brainerd  and  Pay- 
son,  yea,  of  Paul  and  Augustine.  How  much  more 
then  should  the  rest  of  us  make  them,  with  our  faces 
in  the  dust  before  God! 

There  is  need  of  a  new  life  in  the  ministry,  if  the 
preacher  is  to  command  the  respect  of  this  godless, 
scoffing  age,  and  to  have  power  with  it.  There  is  call 
for  the  renunciation  of  self  and  the  putting  on  of 
Christ.  There  is  demand  for  a  singleness  of  purpose, 
a  consecration  to  God,  a  spiritual  faith,  a  self-denial 
for  Christ,  such  as  we  of  this  age  have,  it  is  to  be 
feared,  scarcely  yet  a  faint  conception  of.  It  is 
recorded  that,  when  the  people  of  Collatia  were  stipu- 
lating about  their  surrender  to  the  authority  and  pro- 
tection of  Rome,  they  were  asked:  "Do  you  deliver 
up  yourselves  and  the  Collatine  people,  your  city,  your 
fields,  your  water,  your  bounds,  your  temples,  your 
utensils,  all  things  that  are  yours,  both  human  and 
divine,  into  the  hand  of  the  people  of  Rome?"  and 
when  they  replied:  "We  deliver  up  all,"  they  were 
received. 

God  makes  loud  demand,  in  this  age,  for  such  com- 
plete surrender  and  entire  consecration  of  every  Chris- 


200      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE   MINISTRY. 

tian;  but  he  most  imperatively  makes  that  demand 
of  every  one  whom  he  calls  into  that  new  order  of 
God's Callto  the  ministry  that,  from  this  time  forth, 
Consecration,  should  be  the  only  order — the  wholly 
consecrated  ministry.  When  the  prophet  was  calling 
Israel  to  repentance,  God  commanded  him  to  cry: 
"Wo  be  unto  the  pastors  that  destroy  and  scatter  the 
sheep  of  my  pastures."*  Will  there  not  be  ten  thou- 
sand woes  for  such  teachers,  living  on  these  heights  of 
time  ?  It  is  true  always,  and  especially  true  to-day, 
that  an  unconsecrated,  worldly,  lukewarm,  faithless  min- 
istry is  the  worst  of  blights  and  curses  to  the  Church! 
Who  does  not  agree  with  Bonar,  concerning  the 
need  for  the  infusion  of  new  life  into  the  ministry? 
This  he  voices,  when  he  says,  that  this 

"ought  to  be  the  object  of  more  direct  and  special  effort,  as  well  as 
of  more  united  and  fervent  prayer.  To  the  students,  and  preachers, 
the  ministers  of  the  Christian  Church,  the  prayers  of  Christians  ought 
more  largely  to  be  directed.  It  is  a  living  ministry  that  our  country 
needs,  and  without  such  a  ministry  it  can  not  long  expect  to  escape 
the  judgments  of  God.  We  need  men  that  will  spend  and  be 
spent — that  will  labor  and  pray — that  will  watch  and  wait  for  souls. "f 

Nothing  but  such  new  life  will  give  the  preacher  the 
tremendous  power  needed  for  the  work  of  God,  in 
overtaking  this  whirling,  business-driven,  materialistic, 
self-indulgent  world. 

There  is  need,  too,  of  such  a  sublime  enthusiasm 

and  holy  boldness  for  God  as  will  lead  the  preacher  to 

2.  Sublime     throw  himself  into  his  work  with  all  his 

^and^HoT"^  powers,  and  make  him  speak  out  for  God 
Boldness.  just  what  needs  to  be  spoken  to  check 
the  tide  of  evil  and  to  win  victory  for  the  Kingdom 
of  God. 


* 


Jeremiah  xxiii.  i.  f  Words  to  the  Winners  of  Souls. 


THE    PREACHER    AND    HIS   FURNISHING.  201 

We  have  had  too  much  of  half-hearted,  selfish,  ill- 
directed  work,  or  rather,//^/.  The  man  who  is  called 
of  God,  guided  of  God,  sent  of  God  to  speak  for  God, 
and  upon  whom  the  destiny  of  the  world  hangs — what 
manner  of  man  should  he  be  ?  Verily,  an  intense 
divine  enthusiasm  ought  to  fill  his  soul.  Half-hearted 
work  can  never  succeed,  where  the  preacher  has  all 
the  forces  of  nature,  and  all  the  adverse  forces  of  his 
own  being  and  of  society,  to  contend  with,  master, 
and  turn  to  account — can  never  succeed  with  the 
world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil  all  combined  against 
him.  One  who  saw  Michelangelo  engaged  at  his  work, 
says  that  he  wrought  with  fearful  energy  and  ear- 
nestness, and  accomplished  many  times  as  much  as 
other  men.  Every  stroke  was  so  with  all  his  soul  that 
the  observer,  as  he  saw  the  huge  fragments  fly  from 
the  rapid  blows,  trembled  lest  the  statue  should  be 
ruined.  But  the  enthusiastic  worker  held  ceaselessly 
on,  cutting  and  filing,  until  the  once  shapeless  block 
took  shape  and  polish  and  beauty,  and  stood  forth  the 
finished  work  of  his  hand,  his  brain,  his  soul,  his  life, 
and  the  perfect  embodiment  of  his  idea.  So  needs  the 
servant  of  God  to  work  for  God,  in  the  greater  task 
assigned  him,  with  a  boundless  enthusiasm,  and  with 
all  his  mind,  heart,  soul,  and  strength. 

And  he  should  speak  for  God,  with  the  holy  bold- 
ness of  one  who  fears  Him  only  who  can  cast  both  soul 
and  body  into  hell;  he  should  speak  out  to  the  Church 
and  the  world,  to  the  unbelief  and  covetousness  and 
lawlessness  of  this  age,  just  the  Word  of  God  that  is 
needed.  With  divine  authority  he  should  convict  men 
of  the  criminal  unbelief  that  is  entailing  spiritual  weak- 
ness and  will  bring  eternal  ruin.  With  divine  authority 
he  should  convict  them  of  robbing  God  of  his  tithes, 


202       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

in  building  up  personal  fortunes  and  increasing  the 
glitter  and  vanity  of  this  godless,  material  civilization, 
and  should  show  that  these  terrible  financial  reverses, 
that  blot  out  the  property  of  individuals  and  of  the 
nation,  are  but  the  breath  of  the  God  who  has  been 
robbed,  but  who  will  always  have  his  own.  With 
divine  authority  and  fearlessness  he  should  bring 
home  to  the  conscience  of  this  law-despising  and 
corrupt  age  God's  own  holy  law,  in  its  grandeur  and 
its  strictness,  sparing  not  until  men  cry  out  in  agony, 
as  they  cried  out  under  the  message  of  an  Edwards  or 
a  Rowland;  and  should  summon  them  to  view  the 
judgment  and  the  awful  penalty  of  sin,  until,  in  terror 
and  remorse  and  repentance,  they  flee  from  their  sins 
and  from  the  wrath  to  come. 

Without  this  sublime  enthusiasm  and  this  holy  bold- 
ness, the  preacher  may  not  expect  to  be  heard  and 
heeded  by  this  sinful  and  mad  world  of  to-day. 

The  preacher  needs  most  of  all,  in  that  new  order 

of  the  ministry,  for  which  God  calls  in  his  Word  and 

3  Intense      ^^  ^^^   signs   of  the   times,   an   intense 

Earnestness  in  earnestness     and     energy    in     rescuing 

Rescuing  Souls,  g^^jg  ^^^^   ^^^  gjj^  ^^Lat  enthralls  them, 

and  from  the  perdition  which  they  are  so  recklessly 
daring. 

When  Francis  Xavier  was  about  to  depart  on  his 
mission  to  India,  his  friend  Rodriguez,  who  shared  his 
room  in  the  Hospital  at  Rome,  was  awakened  by  the 
exclamations  of  the  dreaming  man,  and  heard  from 
his  lips  the  earnest  appeal:  *' Yet  more,  O  my  God  ! 
yet  more  !  " 

Many  months  afterward,  Xavier  revealed  the  vision. 
He  had  seen,  in  his  slumber,  the  wild  and  terrible 
future  of  his  career  spread  out  before  him.       There 


THE   PREACHER    AND   HIS   FURNISHING.  20$ 

were  barbarous  regions,  islands,  and  continents,  and 
mighty  empires,  which  he  was  to  win  to  his  faith. 
Storms,  indeed,  swept  around  him,  and  hunger  and 
thirst  were  everywhere,  and  death  in  many  a  fear- 
ful form;  yet  he  shrank  not  back.  He  was  willing 
to  dare  the  peril,  if  he  could  but  win  the  prize.  Nay, 
he  yearned  for  still  wider  fields  of  labor,  and  with  an  ab- 
sorbing passion,  that  filled  every  faculty,  and  haunted 
him  even  in  his  slumber,  he  exclaimed:  *'Yet  more, 
O  my  God  !  yet  more  !  " 

That  may  furnish  the  preacher  of  this  age  a  worthy 
example.  Or,  rather,  he  may  find  a  better  example 
still  in  that  three  years  of  Paul's  ministry,  recorded  in 
the  twentieth  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  in 
view  of  which  he  could  say  to  the  Ephesian  Church, 
on  his  departure  from  it:  ''Therefore  watch,  and 
remember,  that  by  the  space  of  three  years  I  ceased 
not  to  warn  every  one  night  and  day  with  tears."* 
That  is  what  is  especially  needed  in  the  minister  of 
to-day — a  mighty  yearning  for  souls  that  will  not  let 
him  rest.  With  that  he  will  preach  the  Word,  expect- 
ing results.  With  that  he  will  find  the  way  open  to 
the  godless  souls  that  have  been  overtaken  by  the 
blighting  skepticism  and  secularism.  That  will  make 
him  watch  for  souls  as  those  who  must  give  account. 
That  will  lead  to  the  awakening  and  quickening  of  the 
Church,  and  to  the  speedy  carrying  out  of  the  commis- 
sion Christ  has  given  the  preacher  in  sending  him  with 
his  message  to  a  lost  world. 

These  may  seem  plain  and  strong  words;  but  noth- 
ing less  plain  and  strong  will  meet  the  case.  God,  by 
his  Word  and  providence,  has  put  his  ;;^7tv  into  the 
commission  of  the  preacher  and  Church  for  the  con- 
quest of  the  world.     The  embattled  hosts  of  sin  and 

*  Acts  XX.  31. 


204      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

Satan,  in  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  are  gathered  in  im- 
posing array.  Nothing  but  a  Church  aroused  and 
quickened  and  led  by  such  a  ministry  can  hope  for 
speedy  victory,  or  for  victory  at  all.  These  may  seem 
heaven-high  requirements,  but  they  are  assuredly  not 
too  high  for  the  needs  of  the  hour,  and,  by  help  of  the 
grace  of  God  in  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  not  too 
high  to  be  met  by  the  ministry  of  whom  they  are  made. 
With  Christ's  requirements  understood  and  Christ's 
call  heeded,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  Church,  under 
the  leadership  of  such  a  ministry,  should  not  carry  out 
the  Great  Commission  in  the  present  generation. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  PREACHING  FOR  THESE  TIMES. 

The  topics  already  treated — the  Commission  of  the 
Preacher,  his  Message,  and  the  Preacher  himself,  with 
his  Furnishing — have  prepared  for  the  consideration  of 
the  question:  What  is  the  character  of  the  preaching 
demanded  by  the  times  in  which  we  live  ?  The  answer 
must  be: 

Direct  a?id  effective  Gospel  preacJmig  for  the  immediate 
salvatioti  of  a  lost  tvorld. 

Before  that  question  can  be  answered  intelligently 
and  satisfactorily,  there  must  come  in  the  preliminary 
inquiries:  What  are  the  characteristics  of  these  times  ? 
What  special  influences  and  forces  are  at  work  in  the 
world  ? 

SECTION  FIRST. 

The  Times  as  a  Factor  in  Preaching. 

Clearly  everything  depends  upon  the  answers  to 
these  interrogations.  In  the  grand  problem,  How 
is  the  Gospel  to  be  brought  home  to  men?  we  are  to 
look  upon  "the  times,"  as  constituting  the  one  vari- 
able quantity.  Man  remains  essentially  the  same — 
spiritual,  immortal,  yet  sinning  and  perishing  in  his 
rebellion  against  God.  The  Gospel  remains  essen- 
tially the  same — the  Son  of  God  incarnate,  obeying, 
suffering,    dying    as    the    sinner's    substitute,    freely 

205 


2o6    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

offered  of  God  to  man's  faith,  as  the  way  of  salvation. 
The  times,  with  their  influences  and  circumstances, 
change  daily  in  sHghter  degree,  and,  in  the  course  of 
generations,  often,  if  not  ordinarily,  change  essentially. 
While,  therefore,  acknowledging  the  sole  efficiency  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  it  must  yet  be  admitted,  as  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Divine  method,  that  a  message  to  men, 
to  be  heard  and  heeded  of  men,  must  recognize  their 
altered  circumstances.  In  order  to  make  way  for  the 
presentation  of  the  true  Bible  remedy,  it,  therefore, 
becomes  necessary  to  ask: 

What  are  some  of  the  practical  characteristics  of 
these  times  that  have  special  bearing  upon  preaching? 

What  have  been  or  should  be  their  effects  upon  the 
preaching  ? 

I.  Practical  Characteristics  of  the  Times. 

The  trend  toward  materialism  and  secularism  that 
has  been  seen  to  mark  the  present  age  has  naturally 
resulted  in  certain  practical  characteristics,  running 
through  all  our  civilization  and  demanding  to  be  reck- 
oned with  specifically  in  all  the  theory  and  practise  of 
the  pulpit.  It  is  necessary  for  the  preacher  to  under- 
stand and  appreciate  the  most  important  of  these. 

A  glance,  even  the  most  superficial,  can  not  fail  to 
fix  upon  the  extraordinary  activity  of  what  may  be 
1.  Activity  of  the  ^^^^^^  ^^^  scientific  spirit,  as  a  marked 
Scientific  Spirit,  feature  of  this  age  with  its  civilization. 
This  activity,  in  its  special  modern  manifestation, 
began  more  than  a  century  ago,  in  the  realm  of  phys- 
ical nature.  During  all  this  period,  until  the  present 
day,  the  process  of  correcting  and  defining  the  ideas  of 
men  touching*  the  outer  world  has  gone  on  with  accel- 


THE   PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  207 

erated  speed,  until,  out  of  the  once  chaotic  mass  of 
fact  and  truth,  order  and  system  have  everywhere 
been  evoked,  and  the  domain  of  science  has  been 
extended  to  the  whole  sphere  of  terrestrial  exist- 
ence and  to  the  material  aspects  of  the  starry  heavens. 
From  the  ice-rivers  of  Greenland  to  the  fiery  moun- 
tains of  the  Antarctic  Continent — from  the  grain  of 
sand  at  one's  feet  to  the  nebulae  in  the  outer  depths  of 
space — from  the  fuchsia  that  blooms  in  the  greenhouse 
of  to-day  to  the  tree  ferns  of  the  geologic  periods  of  a 
thousand  ages  gone — science  has  pushed  her  investi- 
gations, everywhere  recording,  arranging,  classifying, 
systematizing,  until,  to  the  thinking,  intelligent  man, 
the  world  of  nature  is  a  different  world  from  what  it 
was  to  the  man  of  like  mind  a  century  ago — different 
in  its  rocks  and  plants,  in  its  clouds  and  lightnings, 
and  tempests  and  rainbows — different,  in  short,  in 
everything,  from  the  mystic  dance  of  the  atoms  to  the 
sublimer  dance  of  the  stars. 

Nor  has  this  scientific  spirit  of  the  age  confined 
itself  exclusively  to  the  physical  world;  it  has  over- 
leaped all  such  bounds  and  pushed  its  inquiries  into 
the  regions  bordering  upon  the  grossly  material  in 
which  work  the  forces  that  have  to  do  with  the  increase 
of  wealth  and  the  progress  of  nations,  and  on  into  the 
province  of  the  more  subtile  spiritual  forces  that  ap- 
pear in  the  human  soul  and  in  human  history — until, 
in  the  work  of  its  masters,  political  economy  has 
almost  taken  its  place  among  the  exact  sciences;  until, 
in  the  hands  of  such  men  as  Hamilton  and  Green, 
McCosh  and  Mivart,  the  graver  questions  of  meta- 
physics and  logic,  even  where  not  answered,  have 
become  as  clearly  defined  in  statement  as  problems  in 
geometry;  and  until,  in  the  hands  of  those  whose  com- 


2o8    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

ing  we  wait,  a  philosophy  of  history,  already  foreshad- 
owed and  outlined  in  the  work  of  Professor  Robert 
Flint*  of  Edinburgh,  will  no  longer  be  reckoned 
among  the  impossibilities. 

As  this  work  of  the  century  in  its  more  palpable 
forms  approached  completion,  the  same  processes 
began  to  be  applied  to  literature  and  art.  Criticism 
began  striving  to  take  on  the  scientific  form.  Men 
were  no  longer  satisfied  with  a  few  empirical  rules, 
reverenced  and  applied  simply  because  an  Aristotle  or 
a  Blair,  some  giant  or  some  pygmy,  had  pronounced 
them  truth.  The  power  that  had  accomplished  so 
much  in  behalf  of  order  in  other  departments  led 
men,  in  its  workings  in  this  sphere,  to  conclude,  by  an 
iron  logic,  that  every  art  must  have  its  basis  of  prin- 
ciples, that  may,  at  least  in  measure,  be  ascertained 
and  scientifically  arranged,  and  by  which  one  can 
judge  correctly  of  its  products.  As  a  result,  we  have 
had  a  new  class  of  writings,  which  the  seventeenth 
century  or  even  the  eighteenth  could  not  have  pro- 
duced; comprising,  in  the  field  of  general  literature, 
the  works  of  such  men  as  Goethe  and  Schiller,  Hazlitt 
and  Coleridge,  and  the  whole  line  of  modern  British 
essayists;  and  in  the  field  of  special  art,  such  elaborate 
criticisms  as  those  of  Hermann  Ulrici  and  Gervinus 
on  the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  and  the  Modern  Painters 
and  kindred  works  of  John  Ruskin. 

To  the  man  of  intelligence  and  thought,  the  world 
of  art  is  not  the  same  as  it  was  to  one  of  like  power  of 
a  century  ago.  Not  that  great  art  is  at  all  different 
now  from  what  it  was  then;  not  that  a  man  can  be 
taught  now  by  rule  to  write  a  great  poem,  or  paint  a 
great  picture,  or  improvise  a  sublime  song,  or  extem- 
*  The  Philosophy  of  History  in  France  and  Germany. 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  209 

porize  a  masterly  oration,  any  more  than  a  lark  can  be 
taught  to  flap  its  wings  by  instruction  out  of  Whewell 
or  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  or  a  nightingale  to  sing  accord- 
ing to  the  musical  grammar  of  Calcott;  not,  above 
everything  else,  that  any  other  than  God  can  make  the 
great  artist,  and  not  that  any  other  than  a  great  artist 
can  produce  a  grand  poem,  or  painting,  or  song, 
or  oration;  but  that,  given  the  great  artist,  made  of 
God  and  clothed  of  him  with  his  mission,  there  is  all 
this  new  knowledge  to  aid  him  in  his  work,  and,  given 
the  man  of  common  sense  and  culture,  with  the  dis- 
cerning eye,  he  has  all  this  knowledge  at  his  command 
to  enable  him  to  study,  understand,  and  give  intelligent 
judgment  concerning  the  artist's  great  productions. 
The  two  men,  of  the  past  and  of  the  present,  brought 
side  by  side,  look  upon  essentially  the  same  thing,  but 
he  of  the  present  with  different  and  vastly  clearer  vision. 

This  restless  scientific  activity  thus  reaches  and 
employs  itself  in  every  department  of  thought.  The 
educated,  thinking  men  in  every  community  are 
under  its  dominant  influence,  and,  tho  not  with  the 
masses  the  chief  molding  force,  it  yet  exerts  more  or 
less  power  of  restraint  and  control  far  down  among 
them.  There  is,  consequently,  everywhere  a  demand, 
within  certain  limits,  for  the  philosophic  and  the 
artistic  in  the  method  and  form  of  whatever  aspires  to 
be  considered  a  literary  production,  before  it  can  gain 
the  attention  of  men. 

As   a   second   feature   of   the   times,  one   can    not 
but   note   the   rage  for   novelty  that  so    2.  The  Rage 
possesses    the    masses,   and    shapes    lit-     for  Novelty, 
erature,  art,  and  life,  in  all  their  departments. 

As  a  fact,  the  world,  in  so  far  as  our  knowledge  of  its 
occurrences  is  concerned,  is  another  world  from  what 


2IO      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

it  was  a  century  since.  Then  the  news  came  from 
a  region  comparatively  narrow,  traveling  at  the  slow 
pace  of  the  stage-coach,  the  mounted  post,  or  the  sail- 
ing vessel,  and  was  narrowly  diffused  by  a  few  weekly 
journals.  It  furnished  but  little  of  the  novel  to  excite 
men.  The  progress  of  science  and  art  has  latterly 
brought  the  world  in  its  vast  regions  into  intimate 
intercommunion  and  union  of  parts.  With  steam  and 
electricity  at  his  service,  the  professional  man,  the 
merchant,  or  the  mechanic,  has  for  years  been  able  to 
read  in  his  daily  paper,  before  breakfast,  of  all  the 
chief  events,  and  especially  every  startling  event,  of 
the  past  night,  occurring  in  all  Christendom  and  in  a 
large  part  of  heathendom.  Circumstances  seem  thus 
providentially  arranged,  if  not  to  develop,  at  least  to 
meet,  the  craving  for  the  new  and  exciting.  But  how- 
ever developed,  the  fact  of  such  a  craving  is  beyond 
dispute.  It  is  very  marked  in  the  reading  of  the 
masses  of  the  present  day. 

This   may  well   be   styled  the    era   of   novels,   and 
of  base  and  worthless  novels  at  that.     Solid  literature 

The  Era  of  does  not  furnish  enough  of  excitement. 
Novels.  All  through  the  range  of  reading,  in 
papers,  magazines,  and  books,  to  meet  the  demands 
of  multitudinous  readers,  we  have  the  descending 
scale  all  the  way  to  the  bottom,  from  the  weekly  sheet 
of  sensational  tales,  that,  after  its  brazen  manner, 
insists  on  pressing  its  way  up  into  good  society,  to 
the  despicable  page  that  knows  its  friends  too  well  to 
think  of  any  such  aim;  from  the  pretentious  magazine, 
that,  while  seeking  to  exalt  itself  to  the  chief  literary 
seat,  scarcely  dares  to  tell  the  truth  lest  it  should  not 
be  new,  to  the  yellow-covered  pamphlet  that  is  so 
irredeemably  base  as  never  to  attempt  anything  better 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  211 

than  a  bald  lie;  from  the  portly  volume  that  aspires  to 
a  place  in  the  Church  library,  to  the  unbound  ten-cent 
sheet,  that  never  comes  to  the  light  of  day  and  upon 
which  the  eyes  of  the  man  of  virtue  never  fall. 

The  descent  began  with  the  portrayal  by  writers 
of  what  was  simply  worthless,  and  its  endurance  and 
acceptance  by  readers;  it  has  reached  the  bottom  of  the 
downward  grade,  in  the  later  portrayals  by  the  artists, 
of  positive  error,  infidelity,  vice,  and  crime,  and  their 
eager  acceptance  by  the  public — in  such  books  as 
Robert  Elsmere^  with  its  weak  rehash  of  stale  infidel 
objections  to  the  Bible  and  Christianity,  already 
a  thousand  times  exploded,  and  never  having  had 
any  better  basis  than  the  shallow  conceit  of  their 
originators  or  their  virulent  hatred  of  God  and  vital 
religion;  in  such  sentimental  romance  as  Anna 
Karenina  and  its  fellows,  in  which  the  authors  at  the 
same  time  paint  vice  in  glowing  colors  and  inculcate 
the  destructive  principles  of  anarchism  that  are  sap- 
ping the  foundations  of  human  society;  and  in  such 
realistic  fiction  as  that  in  which  M.  Zola  depicts 
French  vice  and  licentiousness  in  such  cold-blooded 
style  that,  altho  the  depraved  masses  run  wild  over 
it,  it  is  too  gross  to  admit  of  the  indorsement  of  his 
genius  by  the  atheistic  French  Academy.  And  so 
immense  has  been  the  deterioration  of  the  moral  sense 
of  the  Christian  public,  in  connection  with  this  literary 
descent  from  mere  worthlessness  to  positive  irreligiun 
and  vice,  that  the  pulpit  and  the  religious  press  have 
not  hesitated  to  be  among  the  most  prominent  agencies 
in  giving  publicity  to  such  productions,  and  thereby 
adding  vastly  to  their  circulation  and  power  for  evil. 

Public  lectures  and  amusements  have  moved  in  the 
same  direction,  until  in  their  downward  reach  there  is 


212       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL   TO    THE   MINISTRY. 

scarcely  anything,  however  offensive  to  sound  sense, 
cultivated  taste,  correct  morals,  and  right  religious 
feeling,  that  fails  to  find  a  place  to  exhibit  itself  and 
an  audience  to  witness  the  exhibition,  provided  only 
that  it  be  novel.  The  legitimate  culmination  has  been 
reached  in  forms  indefensibly  vicious,  in  the  latest 
developments,  in  nude  art,  the  variety  show  and  ballet 
dance,  and  in  'Miving  pictures,"  over  which  eager 
crowds  gloat. 

Nor  has  this  tendency  left  the  religion  in  the  Church 
untouched  and  uninfluenced.  No  thinking  man  has 
failed  to  mark  its  presence  in  the  work  of  the  Sabbath- 
school — in  changing  the  character  of  the  instruction, 
until  we  hear  too  little  of  the  solid  portions  of  the 
Scripture,  while  pointless  stories  are  often  substituted 
for  God's  truth;  in  transforming  the  addresses,  until, 
in  some  regions,  one  who  is  not  equal  to  Gough  as 
a  mimic,  to  Blondin  as  a  rope-walker,  and  to  Punch  as 
a  punster,  is  hardly  thought  to  be  fitted  to  speak  to  an 
audience  of  children;  in  metamorphosing  the  library, 
until  it  often  happens  that  there  is  little  left  to  be 
read  but  vapid,  so-called  religious  novels,  which,  in 
spite  of  all  their  pretensions  and  of  all  the  puffing  of 
the  religious  press,  are,  in  fact,  in  their  own  essential 
nature,  at  war  with  common  sense,  morality,  and 
religion,  and,  in  their  necessary  influence,  irretrievably, 
we  had  almost  said,  infinitely  bad. 

The  same  spirit  has  not  hesitated  to  invade  and 
desecrate  even  the  pulpit  with  its  unseemly  ways. 
Novelty  in  the  Tradition  has  it  that,  at  a  certain  stage 
Pulpit.  in  their  progress,  Dr.  Archibald  Alex- 
ander used  to  address  his  classes  in  Princeton  Theo- 
logical Seminary  on  the  subject  of  popularity  as 
preachers   somewhat    on    this    wise:     "Why,    young 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  213 

gentlemen,  you  can  be  popular  as  preachers.  It's  the 
easiest  thing  in  the  world.  It  does  not  require  any 
genius,  or  common  sense,  or  study,  or  culture.  Get 
access  to  the  columns  of  the  newspaper,  and  advertise 
that  on  Sunday,  at  the  usual  hours  of  service,  you  will 
preach  standing  on  your  head,  and  the  house  will  be 
crowded.  It's  easy  to  be  popular  in  that  way  if  you 
want  to  be."  In  the  present  day  one  could  bring  from 
the  Saturday  and  Sunday  dailies  of  many  a  city  adver- 
tisements in  which  clergymen  propose  in  all  soberness 
to  perform  for  the  public  entertainment  feats  quite 
as  absurd  as  that  suggested  by  the  great  educator  of 
ministers. 

It  would  need  no  prophet  to  predict  the  results  of 
all  this,  even  were  they  yet  in  the  far  future;  and  since 
they  are  here  in  the  present,  it  takes  no  seer  to  discern 
what  they  are.  This  is  not  the  place  to  demonstrate 
what  must  be  the  logical  result  of  reading  novels  only, 
and  only  poor  ones  at  that.  The  man  who  thinks  and 
reasons  for  himself  knows  what  it  must  be.  We  have 
come,  in  fact,  upon  a  public  with  one  of  its  great  ele- 
ments in  such  a  condition  that  it  has  no  mental  muscle 
with  which  to  lay  hold  of  truth;  cares  nothing  for  the 
standard  English  literature;  takes  no  interest  in  the- 
ology or  the  truth  of  God,  and  goes  to  church,  if  at  all, 
to  be  entertained  rather  than  instructed.  We  have 
trained  up  a  generation  of  men  by  the  reading  of  books 
filled  with  pretended  facts  that  are  yet  contrary  to  the 
nature  of  things,  of  man  and  of  God — that  is  con- 
trolled by  a  morality  not  of  God,  a  religion  not  of 
Christ,  and  a  spirit  infused  of  Mammon  and  Fashion, 
rather  than  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  and  in  so  training 
them  we  have  substantially  destroyed  all  taste  for  that 
which  is  true  and  Christ-like,  and  almost  barred  the 


214      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

possibility  of  their  becoming  the  powerful  thinkers 
and  the  earnest  practical  workers  that  the  exigencies 
of  the  Church  demand  for  its  mission. 

The  day  may  not  yet  have  come  when  the  people  of 
God  are  ready  to  enter  their  solemn  protest,  and  to 
sweep  all  such  trash  out  of  church,  Sabbath-school, 
and  family;  but  it  must  come  sooner  or  later,  for  God's 
government  is  so  ordered  that  it  never  suffers  a  foolish, 
a  base,  or  an  evil  thing  to  perpetuate  its  existence  in 
his  Church  forever.  But,  however  that  may  be,  there 
is  no  disputing  the  fact  of  this  morbid  tendency  to 
novelty,  and  that  is  all  that  need  be  contended  for  now 
and  here.  It  manifests  itself  everywhere,  reaching  to 
some  extent  all  classes.  The  cultivated  and  refined 
are  not  wholly  free  from  it;  with  the  masses  it  is  the 
molding,  ruling  tendency.  We  are  almost  repeating 
the  experience  of  the  old  Athenians,  in  the  decline 
of  the  Greek  nation,  in  the  time  of  Paul,  with  whom 
the  one  all-absorbing  question  was:  ''What  is  there 
new?"  *  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  in  consequence 
of  this  the  demand  for  the  novel,  the  unusual,  the 
startling,  is  brought  to  bear  upon  everything  that 
aspires  to  the  dignity  of  literature  in  its  higher  artistic 
forms,  and  almost  made  a  condition  of  its  gaining 
access  to  men. 

A  third  feature  of  the  age,  and  the  last   we  shall 

enumerate,  is  the  prevalence  of  the  utilitarian  spirit, 

3.  The  Rage     coexisting  with   the    tendencies  already 

forUtmty.  noted.  *'Cui  bono?"  is  the  universal 
cry.  Men  hurry — we  shall  not  stop  to  inquire  whether 
consistently  or  inconsistently — from  their  scientific 
investigations,  from  their  art-worship,  and  from  their 
novel-reading  and  sight-seeing,  to  join  in  that  common 
cry.     This  we  believe  an  admitted  fact. 

*  Acts  xvii.  21. 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  215 

There  is  doubtless  a  true  and  right  noble  sense  of 
the  word  ''useful."  Ruskin  has  well  affirmed  that  as 
man's  chief  use  is  to  be  "the  witness  of  the  glory  of 
God,  and  to  advance  that  glory  by  his  reasonable 
obedience  and  resultant  happiness,  whatever  enables 
him  to  fulfil  this  function  is  in  the  noblest  and  truest 
sense  of  the  word  useful  to  him  " ;  but  there  is  a  meaner 
sense  as  well.  "Things  that  help  us  to  exist  are,  in  a 
secondary  and  mean  sense,  useful;  or  rather,  if  they 
be  looked  for  alone,  they  are  useless  and  worse,  for  it 
would  be  better  that  we  should  not  exist  than  that  we 
should  guiltily  disappoint  the  purposes  of  existence."  * 
And  the  present  is  admitted  to  be  one  of  those  periods 
when  men  gravitate  toward  this  lower  utility. 

Taking  up  this  baser  sense  of  utility,  we  are  ready 
in  this  age  to  ask  of  everything.  What  is  it  worth  ? 
Wherein  will  it  aid  us?  Will  it  make  business  easier? 
Will  it  help  us  to  run  our  factories,  and  dig  our  canals, 
and  build  our  railroads,  and  bridge  our  rivers,  and 
tunnel  our  mountains  ?  What  will  its  value  be,  esti- 
mated in  "greenbacks"  or  in  gold?  Even  religion 
can  not  escape  the  influence,  tho  in  its  case  that  influ- 
ence has  doubtless  been  elevating,  in  producing  a 
reaction  against  practical  worthlessness.  We  are 
acquiring  a  habit  of  asking,  even  of  religion.  What  is 
its  value  ?  Will  it  make  better  merchants,  scholars, 
and  mechanics  ?  Will  it  make  truer  husbands  and 
wives,  better  sons  and  daughters,  more  faithful  friends 
and  neighbors,  happier  homes  and  communities  ? 
What  is  it  as  a  working  power,  affecting  the  business 
and  bosoms  of  men?  What  profit  is  it  ?  Everywhere 
in  everything  we  may  note  this  third  tendency,  ruling 
multitudes  and  influencing  all.  It  demands  and  exacts 
of  everything  literary,  even  to  the  poem  and  the  novel, 


*    it/r -  J . 


2i6    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

that  it  submit  to  an  infusion,  in  seeming  at  least,  of 
this  demonstrable  utility,  before  it  can  secure  the  ear 
of  the  great  public. 


II.    The  Results  of  these  Characteristics  upon 
THE  Preaching  of  the  Present  Day. 

In  any  ordinary  audience  these  three  tendencies 
are  represented,  and  a  corresponding  threefold  require- 
Threefold  Ee-  i^^^'^t  is  consequently  made  of  the  minis- 
quirement  and  trations  of  the  pulpit:  first,  for  philo- 
Tendency.  gophic  and  artistic  form  ;  secondly,  for 
originality  and  vividness  in  presenting  God's  truth; 
and  thirdly,  for  an  intense  practicality.  Accordingly, 
the  exactions  of  this  age  are  undoubtedly  greater  than 
any  ever  before  made  of  God's  messengers.  Humanly 
speaking,  if  a  mass  of  men  so  constituted  is  to  be 
reached,  molded,  and  controlled,  the  canons  of  art 
must  not  be  violated;  God's  plain  truth  must  be  made 
more  telling  than  man's  most  highly  wrought  fiction, 
and  the  Gospel  must  somehow  be  made  more  deeply 
and  attractively  practical  than  stock  speculation,  bank- 
ing, and  building,  and  costly  and  luxurious  eating  and 
living.  Admitting  and  insisting  upon  the  mission  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  still  the  appalling  demand  is  enough 
to  make  the  bravest,  who  at  all  appreciates  it,  quail 
before  it,  and  declare  with  that  wonderfully  gifted 
preacher,  F.  W.  Robertson,  "I  would  rather  lead  a 
forlorn  hope  than  mount  the  pulpit  stairs."  Yet  he 
who  bears  his  message  in  God's  name  may  not  shrink 
from  meeting  the  responsibility,  whatever  trial  or 
effort  it  may  entail.  How,  then,  shall  the  task  be 
accomplished  ? 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  217 

If  we  examine  their  working-schemes,  as  distin- 
guished from  their  rhetorical  theories,  men,  in  attempt- 
ing this  task,  have  made  trial  of  three  methods,  each 
of  which  has  been  determined  by  predominant  or  ex- 
clusive regard  to  some  one  of  the  three  great  tenden- 
cies of  the  times — a  regard  resulting  sometimes  from 
eccentricity  of  temperament,  sometimes  from  peculiar- 
ity in  circumstances,  and  sometimes  from  defective 
logic.  Sincere  and  in  earnest  they  have  doubtless 
been  in  the  trial,  but  the  result  has  been  admitted 
failure,  for  the  simple  reason  that  God's  world  is  so 
made  that  no  half-truth  can  win  and  wield  permanent 
influence  over  all  classes  in  a  community. 

Men  under  the  influence  of  the  scientific  tendency 
have  reasoned  thus  :  ''This  is  the  noblest  of  these  pre- 
vailing influences  of  the  age.  Special  i  mv  g  • 
heed  to  it  will  give  us  control  over  the  tific  and  Es- 
highest  class  of  hearers.  We  must  bring  ^^^^^^  Gospel. 
the  masses  up  to  our  standpoint,  rather  than  descend 
to  theirs."  And  so,  as  one-sided  things  naturally  run 
into  extremes,  we  have  had  metaphysical  disquisitions, 
and  splendid  essays,  and  prose-poems — often  profound 
and  elaborate  indeed,  but  quickening  the  plain  man 
with  no  new  and  telling  truth,  and  making  no  common 
heart  beat  faster  by  laying  magic  touch  on  earnest  and 
noble  practical  instincts;  in  short,  we  have  had  our 
gospel  of  philosophy  and  esthetics.  Its  theory  may 
be  very  fine;  but  it  has  swept  the  masses  out  of  the 
church  by  a  logic  inevitable  as  fate  :  *'  If  that  be  the 
Gospel,  it  is  incomprehensible  and  worthless  to  us; 
we  don't  see  how  it  can  elevate  or  save  us;  we  may  as 
well  stay  at  home  " — and  so  they  have  stayed  at 
home,  as  the  complaints  and  wails  of  the  day  attest. 
Nor  has  that  been  all,    for  this  style  of  presenting 


2i8    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

God's  message  has  weakened  the  sense  of  obligation 
even  in  the  higher  classes  to  whom  it  has  been 
directed.  They  have  reasoned  thus  :  "If  the  Gospel 
be  only  a  beautiful  thing,  with  nothing  living  and 
practical,  it  is  not  worth  much  to  us" — and  so  they  too 
have  stayed  at  home. 

Another  class,  under  the  influence  of  the  thirst  for 
novelty,  has  made  chief  or  exclusive  use  of  that  tend- 
2.  The  Gospel  ^ncy,  in  seeking  to  accomplish  the  great 
of  Sensation,  task  of  securing  and  holding  the  atten- 
tion of  men.  ''Here  is  the  way" — so  they  have 
reasoned — "  of  reaching  the  masses,  and  of  saving  the 
most  souls;  anything  is  right  in  so  noble  a  work;  we 
must  go  down  to  men  and  take  advantage  of  every- 
thing that  is  in  them."  And  so  again,  by  the  common 
tendency  to  extremes,  we  have  had  our  gospel  of 
*' clap-trap"  and  **  twaddle."  Religion  has  thus  been 
made  a  play,  an  entertainment,  too  often  a  fashionable 
one,  and  the  church  turned  into  a  petty  show-house, 
a  theater,  on  whose  stage  the  ''mysteries  and  morali- 
ties "  have  been  re-enacted.  The  result  has  been  a 
very  natural  one;  worldly  men  prefer  good  acting  to 
bad,  Shakespeare's  tragedies  and  comedies  to  the  poor 
parson's,  and  a  first-class  to  a  tenth-rate  theater, — 
and  so  of  all  other  entertainments, — and  in  the  end 
they  have  too  frequently  gone  to  the  genuine  play- 
house, with  its  cards,  billiards,  or  theatricals — the 
playhouse  that  is  such  without  hypocrisy,  tho  its 
doors  open  into  the  pit.  The  gospel  of  clap-trap 
has  lamentably  failed,  and  men  have  felt  and  acted 
upon,  even  where  they  have  not  acknowledged,  its 
worthlessness;  and  the  movement,  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest,  has  been  away  from  at  least  such  sanc- 
tuaries.   The  churches  in  recent  times  that  have  most 


THE   PREACHING    FOR   THESE   TIMES.  219 

notably  depended  upon  it  have  ultimately  gone  to 
pieces,  thereby  demonstrating  the  superficial  char- 
acter of  their  work,  as  well  as  the  falsity  of  their 
principle. 

The  third  class  has  fallen  in  with  utilitarianism, 
and  come  under  its  sway.  They  have  reasoned  :  *'  It 
matters  neither  how  true,  nor  how  new,  3  ^j^^  Gosuel 
nor  how  beautiful,  a  thing  maybe,  if  it  of  Petty  Prac- 
be  of  no  practical  value;  its  practical  ticahty. 
worth  must  be  clearly  seen  and  laid  hold  of,  and 
presented  most  pungently  and  directly  to  men."  But, 
as  the  practical  power  of  God's  truth  is  ordinarily  too 
vast  in  its  workings  to  be  summed  up  and  expressed 
in  figures,  and  estimated  in  dollars  and  cents,  the  so- 
called  practicality  has,  from  its  original  one-sidedness, 
in  many  cases  degenerated  into  small  scolding  on  sub- 
jects of  the  least  possible  importance  to  any  human 
being.  And  so  we  have  had  our  gospel  of  vinegar  and 
wormwood — our  Xantippe  gospel.  Men  of  taste  and 
culture  can  not,  and  will  not,  long  endure  this;  the 
novelty-seekers  do  not  care  for  it;  only  small  gossip- 
ing people  take  an  interest  in  such  things — and  the 
tide  again  turns  away  from  the  pews. 

It  needs  no  argument  to  demonstrate  that  none  of 
these  methods  has  accomplished,  or  ever  will  accom- 
plish, the  great  task  of  reaching,  swaying,  and  saving 
the  multitudes  in  our  Christian  lands.  Each  is  partial 
and  one-sided  in  its  assumed  principle,  and  nugatory, 
if  not  evil,  in  its  results.  We  must  have  a  working- 
scheme  broad  enough  to  take  into  account  all  these 
forces  at  once,  and  that  shall  at  once  meet  the  right- 
ful demands  of  all  three  of  these  prominent  tenden- 
cies,— while  doing  vastly  more  than  that.  Discourse 
must  in  some  way  be  made  to  conform  to  the  highest 


220      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE   MINISTRY. 

principles  of  art,  and  yet  be  neither  essay  nor  poem; 
to  combine  novelty  with  truthfulness,  the  'Hhingsnew 
and  old,"  of  Scripture;  and  to  be  in  the  broadest, 
deepest,  truest  sense,  practical  and  useful. 

Two  things  render  the  present  a  favorable  time  for 
the  consideration  of  the  problem  thus  stated,  with  the 
view  to  its  correct  solution.  The  first  of  these  is,  the 
extensive  agitation  of  the  question,  *'How  shall  the 
masses  be  brought  into  the  sanctuary,  attached  to  it, 
and  saved  ? "  The  Church  sees,  as  it  has  never  seen 
before,  that  it  is  a  vital  question,  one  touching  her 
very  existence,  and  she  is  naturally  anxious  to  reach 
a  true  answer.  The  other  favorable  feature  is,  the 
reaction  that  has  set  in  against  the  extreme  and  one- 
sided measures  that  even  earnest  men  have  been  dis- 
posed to  try.  The  gospel  of  esthetics,  the  gospel  of 
clap-trap,  and  the  gospel  of  petty  scolding  are  not  the 
popular  things  they  once  were  in  certain  quarters. 
Common  sense,  the  right  Christian  feeling,  have  re- 
volted against  them.  Sunday-schools  that  once  ran 
wild  over  the  wares  of  the  quack  vender  of  novelties, 
now  shut  out  everything  of  that  kind,  or  meet  it,  when 
it  is  forced  upon  them,  with  indignation  and  loathing. 
Churches  that  once  delighted  in  the  dispensation  of 
toys  and  gewgaws,  have  found  these  to  be  very  worth- 
less things  in  the  work  of  building  up  a  permanent 
congregation  and  a  vigorous  and  healthy  working 
membership.  These  two  things,  we  say,  indicate  that 
the  present  is  a  favorable  time  for  the  consideration 
of  the  great  problem,  with  the  view  to  its  correct 
solution. 

It  is  equally  true  that  these  popular  methods  do  not 
promise  any  better  results  in  the  direction  of  the  evan- 
gelization of  the  world.     Methods  that  are  heathenizing 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  221 

Christendom  can  not  be  depended  upon  to  Christianize 
heathendom. 

It  is  proposed  to  consider  the  problem  of  effective 
preaching  in  its  twofold  relation:  first,  to  the  general 
state  of  things  at  the  present  time  ;  and  secondly,  to 
Christ's  present  requirement  for  the  immediate  evan- 
gelization of  the  world. 

SECTION  SECOND. 

The  Preaching  Required  by  the  General  State  of  Things 
at  the  Present  Day. 

The  characteristics  of  the  times  being  such  as  al- 
ready noted,  and  such  being  the  stage  reached  in  the 
experiment  of  solving  the  great  practical  problem  of 
the  Church,  we  are  prepared  to  advance  a  step  further 
in  the  discussion,  and  with  a  view  to  framingan  answer 
in  one  degree  less  general,  ask  again  the  question: 
What  is  the  preaching  suited  to  these  determined 
conditions  of  the  case  ?  The  plain  answer,  which  is 
neither  unchristian  nor  unchurchly,  is: 

God's  trut/i,  in  its  practical  bearings,  must  be  presented 
with  proper  artistic  for7n^  and  with  power,  with  the  grand 
end  of  saving  and  elevating  men. 

This  answer  would,  we  opine,  be  found  not  wholly 
new,  if  we  could  take  the  sense  of  the  thinking,  ear- 
nest men  of  the  past  and  present;  and  yet  we  trust  that, 
when  unfolded,  it  will  be  seen  to  have  enough  of  the 
new  to  meet  fully  the  exigencies  of  the  case.  God's 
truth,  in  the  proper  artistic  form,  will  meet  the  wants 
of  those  who  have  come  under  the  influence  of  the  sci- 
entific spirit.  God's  truth,  in  its  grandeur,  properly 
understood,  contains  the  **  things  new  and  old  " — neiv 
no  less  than  old — with  which  the  wants  of  the  spirit 


222      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

naturally  thirsting  for  newness  must  be  met.  God's 
truth,  in  its  practical  bearings,  is  widely  and  intensely 
practical  enough  for  the  most  thorough-going  of  all 
sound  utilitarians.  And  the  one  aim,  in  the  elevation 
and  salvation  of  men,  subordinating  everything  else  to 
itself  and  God's  glory,  furnishes  the  true  principle  of 
unity  that  will  bind  all  together,  and  make  the  work 
single  while  it  is  earnest  and  hopeful. 

In  passing  on  to  the  unfolding  of  the  proposition  just 
laid  down,  it  follows  that,  if  these  considerations  ac- 
cord with  truth,  certain  exceedingly  important  topics 
need  to  be  presented  and  emphasized. 

I.    A  Better  Theory  of  the  Art  of  Oratory 
Must  be  Grasped. 

There  is  absolute  necessity  on  the  part  of  the  clergy 
for  a  more  correct,  complete,  and  consistent  theory  of 
rhetoric,  or  the  art  of  oratory. 

One  may  study  the  laws  of  eloquence,  solely  that  he 
may  know  them,  and  in  this  way  attain  to  a  scie7ice  of 
the  subject  ;  or  for  the  purpose  of  applying  them  to 
any  particular  product  of  art  that  he  may  estimate  it, 
and  in  this  way  acquire  a  knowledge  of  tht prmciples  of 
criticism;  or  for  the  purpose  of  instruction,  develop- 
ment, and  guidance,  in  attaining  skill  in  public  speak- 
ing, and  in  this  way  become  master  of  the  subject  as 
art.  The  demand  made  upon  the  preacher  can  not  be 
properly  complied  with  without  a  thorough  command 
of  rhetoric  in  all  these  relations.  Assuredly  he 
ought  to  have  a  thorough  mastery  of  the  means,  the 
forces,  and  the  principles  involved  in  his  sublime  work, 
as  well  as  how  they  are  to  be  applied,  both  in  criticism 
and  in  production. 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  223 

It  is  our  firm  belief  that,  other  things  being  equal, 
a  man's  success,  in  any  sphere,  is,  under  God,  in  ex- 
act proportion  to  the  correctness  of  the  theory  by 
which  he  carries  forward  his  work;  and  we  base  our 
judgment  on  faith  in  that  justice  of  the  divine  govern- 
ment, by  virtue  of  which  it  is  always  found  on  the 
side  of  the  right,  whether  it  be  the  right  in  method  or 
in  action.  Nor  would  we  hesitate  to  make  strictest 
application  of  this  rule  to  the  work  of  the  ministry. 
A  God  of  order  can  not  delight  in  disorder  in  the  high- 
est mission  assigned  to  man.  Other  things  being 
equal,  a  man's  success  in  the  ministry  is  in  exact  pro- 
portion to  the  correctness  and  completeness  of  his 
working-theory.  What  am  I  to  do  ?  How,  and  with 
what  am  I  to  do  it  ?  are  thus  vital  questions  for  one 
sent  with  a  message  from  God  to  men.  God  will  never 
fail  to  do  his  part  ;  it  is  man's  to  see  to  it  that  his  be 
done  the  best  possible. 

(I)  Prevailing  Theories  and  No  Theories. 

Leaving  out  of  view  those  among  the  clergy  who 
have  been  led  to  entertain  intelligent  and  right  views 
of  the  art  of  oratory,  the  remainder  naturally  fall  into 
two  classes  :  first,  those  who  have  no  theory  at  all  on 
the  subject,  and,  secondly,  those  who  hold  only  partial 
theories.     Of  these  in  their  order. 

It  requires  not  even  a  discerning  eye  to  advise  one 
of    the    fact    that    there    are    numbers  i    Advocates  of 
among  the  clergy  who   have   no    theory     No  Theory, 
whatever  on  the  important   subject  of  their  mission 
as  God's  mouthpieces  in  the  world. 

Any  one  can  recall  those  of  his  own  acquaintance  who 
scoff  at  all  such  theories  when  out  of  the  pulpit,  and 


224    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

violate  everything  that  could  be  rightly  embodied  in 
them  when  in  the  pulpit.  And,  in  self-defense,  they 
are  always  resurrecting  the  old  and  senseless  objec- 
tions to  art  and  the  knowledge  of  it,  that  they  may 
confront  the  advocates  of  right  method  with  their 
ghosts.  The  familiar  words  of  even  so  distinguished 
a  man  as  Lord  Macaulay,  running  in  a  line  with  the 
opinions  of  these  objectors,  will  doubtless  occur  to 
any  one  at  all  familiar  with  our  English  literature.  We 
refer  to  the  passage  in  his  critique  on  Bacon,  in  which 
he  rails  at  rhetoric,  logic,  and  grammar.  Macaulay's 
practise  is  the  best  refutation  of  his  theory,  for  in  all 
his  writings  we  find  a  studied  adherence  to  the  very 
principles  at  which,  in  this  article,  he  scoffs. 

To  the  class  with  which  we  are  dealing,  art  is  syn- 
onymous with  artificial,  or  artful.  They  profess  to 
plead  for  nature.  "  I  must  be  natural — must  speak 
out  and  act  out  my  own  nature."  "But  you  are  rude 
in  manner,  awkward  in  gesture,  rough  in  style,  harsh 
in  voice.  You  ought  to  practise  elocution,  and  to 
seek  to  polish  your  style."  ''  But  it  is  my  own  natural 
self.  God  has  made  me  so,  and  I  must  act  out  my- 
self." And  thus  the  man  deliberately  persists  in  utter- 
ing what  is  at  once  a  libel  upon  his  nature  and  his 
God, — for  he  is  not  at  all  as  God  made  him,  but  as  man 
has  unmade  him, — and  what  he  calls  his  *'  own  natural 
self"  is  most  horridly  and  indefensibly  unnatural. 

Such  objections  are  shorn  of  all  their  force  to  one 
who  has  caught  even  a  glimpse  of  the  simple  truth — 
that  all  perfect  art,  if  not  nature,  is  yet  like  and  con- 
sistent with  her;  and  who  has  come  but  to  suspect 
that  all  imperfect  art,  so  far  as  true,  aims  at  this  like- 
ness and  consistency.  To  him  everything  that  falls 
short  of  the  full  likeness  and  consistency,  is,  in  so  far. 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  225 

unnatural  and  wrong.  He  finds  that  the  principles  of 
the  highest  art  are  merely  the  interpretation  of  the 
plain  facts  of  nature.  It  is  just  by  the  interpretation 
of  the  facts  of  nature  that  the  true,  thinking  man,  of 
clear  views,  comes  by  his  theory  of  sacred  eloquence, 
and  he  therefore  knows  it  can  be  neither  artificial  nor 
unnatural.  The  essential  phenomena  are  before  him 
at  the  outset.  A  right  theory  must  take  into  account 
and  embody  all  these  facts.  If,  in  striving  to  do  this, 
he  adds  anything  to  nature,  the  result  is  inconsistency; 
if  from  nature  he  subtracts  anything,  incompleteness. 
He  is  so  far  true  as  he  adheres  to  nature.  The  thing 
is  so  simple  that  shallow  talk  about  being  "  artificial  " 
and  ''unnatural"  can  not  shake  his  faith  in  the 
slightest. 

As  we  come  now  to  judge  of  partial  theories,  held 
by  the  second  class,  above-mentioned,   there  is  need 
that  we  pause  a  moment  to  contemplate    „   Advocates 
those    facts   of   eloquence    of    which   we      of  Partial 
have  spoken  as  patent  to  all,  and  to  in-       Theories, 
terpret  them,  in  order  that  we  may  have  the  correct 
and  complete  as  a  standard  by  which  to  try  the  in- 
correct and  incomplete. 

In  sacred  eloquence  we  have  before  us  a  soul,  in  the 
concrete  fulness  of  its  powers  and  functions,  possessed 
by  God's  truth  and  Spirit,  expressing  itself  by  means 
of  appropriate  language,  to  move  and  save  other  souls 
constituted  like  itself.  There  is  first,  and  on  either 
side,  a  soul,  in  the  fulness  of  its  powers,  /.  e.j  mind, 
heart,  will,  taste,  conscience — all  these.  A  soul  ex- 
pressing itself,  or  a  soul  moved,  involves  all  of  these. 
Then  this  soul  is  under  the  controlling  influence  of 
God's  truth  and  Spirit.  That  lifts  its  activity  out  of 
the   sphere   of   the   purely   human   and   natural,    and 


226     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

makes  the  man  a  divine  messenger.  Then  there  is  the 
fit  instrument  of  expression,  appropriate  language, 
articulate  and  inarticulate,  including  speech,  tone, 
look,  gesture,  in  short,  whatever  in  the  orator  aids 
expression.  And,  lastly,  the  one  grand  aim,  to  move 
and  save  souls. 

These  are  the  facts,  as  any  one  may  read  them  for 
himself.  Theories  of  pulpit  eloquence  that  fail  to 
take  into  account  any  of  these  facts  must  be  partial, 
one-sided,  so  far  wrong.  The  test  is  simple;  let  us 
try  some  of  them. 

*' Preaching,"   says   one,    **is   the   presentation   of 

theological  truth  !  "     If  in  his  practise  he  holds  firmly 

(1)   Presenta-    ^^^    consistently    to    his    theory,   in    its 

tion  of  Theo-  ordinary  acceptation,  a  sermon  with  him 
logical  Truth,  becomes  a  theological  essay.  He  evi- 
dently has  a  truth  in  his  scheme,  but  it  is  only  a  par- 
tial truth,  not  even  a  half-truth.  He  has  omitted  the 
essential  aim  of  preaching,  forgotten  the  Divine  com- 
mission, and  somehow  substituted  an  intellect  for  a 
soul.  Perhaps,  if  he  ever  suspected  man  possessed  of 
heart,  will,  taste,  and  conscience,  he  has  summarily 
reached  the  conclusion  that  these  are  never  affected 
except  through  cold,  logical  presentations  of  truth  to 
the  understanding,  and  that  they  have  no  reciprocat- 
ing or  reactiiig  power.  And  by  the  phrase,  '*  presen- 
tation of  truth,"  such  theorists  too  often  mean,  simply 
putting  it  into  logical  and  grammatical  formulas,  that 
are  intelligible  to  the  speaker  himself,  and  to  educated, 
thinking  men,  but  either  unintelligible  or  forceless  to 
the  plain  man.  To  them  expression  exhausts  the  mean- 
ing of  their  theory. 

We    protest   that    expression    is    not   the   whole  of 
oratory.       The    expression    of    truth    characterizes 


THE   PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  227 

science  and  philosophy,  and  the  expression  of  esthetic 
truth,  the  fine  arts;  but  oratory  is  set  apart  from  both 
these  by  the  fact  that  it  not  only  expresses  but 
transfers  truth.  Before  the  preacher  has  fulfilled  his 
mission,  the  theological  truth  must  be  put  in  fit 
words;  into  these  must  be  breathed  the  quickening 
power  of  right  feeling,  deep  moral  purpose,  and  in- 
tense spirituality;  and  then  this  living  whole  must  be 
pressed  home  with  all  the  art  and  force  of  outward 
eloquence  until  that  truth  of  God,  in  its  clearness, 
completeness,  warmth,  and  life,  is  left  lodged  in  the 
heart  of  the  hearer.  The  actual  transfer  of  God's 
truth  to  other  souls  is  essential  to  a  proper  oratorical 
presentation,  and  every  effort  that  falls  short  of  this 
is,  so  far  as  the  highest  aim  of  oratory  is  concerned,  a 
failure. 

And  yet,  narrow  as  is  this  view  that  is  satisfied  with 
mere  expression  in  language,  it  is  amazing  to  how 
large  an  extent  it  is  the  working-theory  in  the  pulpit. 
We  once  heard  a  sermon  after  this  pattern,  which 
treated  of  the  whole  subject  of  the  future  state  of 
God's  children,  answering  the  questions:  ''What  is 
heaven?"  ''What  of  heavenly  recognition?"  etc., 
etc.,  quoting  three  or  four  poems — the  whole  discourse 
occupying  precisely  twenty  minutes  !  We  are  certain 
that  the  man  had  never  dreamed  of  one  thing  that 
belongs  distinctively  to  the  sermon.  We  grant  this 
an  extreme  case,  but  many  a  discourse  is  constructed 
after  a  like  model;  and,  as  is  always  the  case,  the 
mightier  the  logic  of  the  man  who  works  after  such 
incomplete  pattern,  the  more  rigidly  does  he  adhere 
to  it. 

The  partial  truth  that  gives  this  view  its  power  over 
certain  minds  is  that  man  has  an  intellect  to  which 


228    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

the  preacher   must   impart   the  knowledge  of  God's 

Word.     An  important  truth  it  is  admitted  to  be;   the 

great,  we  had  almost  said,  fatal  error,  is  in  supposing 

it  the  whole  truth. 

Reacting  against  this  view,  another  class  holds  that 

preaching  is  moving  the  religious  feelings  of  men  by 

^„,  ,     ,     .      any  means  whatsoever.     If   one  of  this 
(2)  Awakening        •'   , 

the  Keligious  opinion  hold  firmly  by  it  in  his  practise, 
Emotions.  ^  sermon  with  him  may  possibly  rise  to 
the  dignity  of  an  exhortation.  There  is  evidently 
some  truth  in  his  notion,  but  only  a  modicum.  In- 
struction is  of  the  least  possible  importance  in  his 
scheme.  God's  Word  is  of  no  worth  where  a  good 
story  or  a  telling  gesture  will  compass  his  end  better. 
In  place  of  a  soul,  in  all  the  fulness  of  its  powers,  he 
puts  the  emotional  part  of  man's  nature,  and  that 
often  not  the  heart  in  its  entireness  embracing  those 
states  of  feeling  that  may  be  as  lasting  as  the  soul 
itself;  but  the  fitful,  fleeting  passions  of  a  moment, 
neither  deep  enough  nor  permanent  enough  to  affect 
the  life. 

The  writer  once  listened,  for  a  month  or  two,  to 
the  nightly  ministrations  of  the  once  notorious  Rev. 
John  Newland  Maffit,  a  most  admirable  illustration  of 
this  method.  Any  one  who  ever  heard  him  can  recall 
the  **  start  and  stare  theatric,"  the  moving  sentimental 
story,  the  thousand  little  nothings  in  style  and  voice 
and  gesture,  fitted  and  intended  to  rouse  the  feelings 
of  his  audience;  and  any  one  who  ever  watched  the 
progress  of  his  plot  to  its  denouement,  will  readily 
recognize  in  him  a  complete  specimen  of  the  man  who 
thinks  it  to  be  his  mission  to  move  the  religious  feel- 
ings by  any  means  whatever. 

The  truth  that  gives  this  theory  all  its  power  is  that 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  229 

man  has  a  heart  that  is  to  be  moved  and  affected;  the 
great  and  almost  fatal  error  is  in  supposing  that  this 
is  all. 

Passing  over  the  multitudinous  variations  of  opin- 
ion, each  of  which  has  its  truth,  great  or     ^  Freedom 
little,  as  the  case   may  be,  we  find  one  Requires  Avoid- 
thing   more    deserving    special    notice —   ance  of  Rules, 
the   theory  that  no   definite   rules   or   principles   are 
needed   by  the  pulpit  orator. 

It  may  appear  inconsistent  to  call  such  a  view  a 
theory,  when,  on  its  very  face,  it  professes  to  discard 
all  theories.  Nevertheless,  it  does,  in  fact,  seek  to 
make  a  theory  of  its  no-theory.  We  have  seen 
elaborate  articles  in  the  '*  Quarterlies"  advocating  it. 
"Let  us  have  freedom  for  genius,"  is  its  cry.  **  Away 
with  your  formal  divisions;  they  hamper  us  ! "  *'  Down 
with  your  formal  rules;  man  is  a  law  to  himself!" 
**  Out  with  your  stereotyped  forms;  they  are  the  dead 
letter  that  killeth  !  "     *'  Give  us  the  largest  liberty  !  " 

Unfortunately,  it  is  seldom  genius  that  utters  the 
cry;  ordinarily  it  is  mediocrity — sometimes  honest,  in- 
dustrious mediocrity,  but  mediocrity  still.  If  it  be  a 
man  of  mark,  it  is  ordinarily  raised  in  reference  to 
something  of  which  he  knows  but  little.  A  generation 
ago  the  literary  world  had,  in  another  department, 
an  illustration  of  the  truth  of  these  affirmations,  in  the 
Dean  of  Canterbury's  absolution  of  himself  from  the 
shackles  of  grammatical  rules,  while  undertaking  to 
be  an  authoritive  teacher  of  the  ''Queen's  English." 
"The  Dean's  English,"  and  various  other  brochures, 
demonstrated  that  no  one  had  more  need  than  Dean 
Alford  himself  to  be  taught  these  rules,  and  to  be 
guided  in  the  practise  of  them.  This  is  but  one  case 
of  the  million. 


230      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE   MINISTRY. 

And  yet  there  is  a  value  in  this  view,  if  it  be  considered 
as  a  reaction  against  a  cold,  rigid,  dead  formality,  with 
which  too  many  are  familiar.  It  has  its  admitted  truth, 
that  freedom  is  necessary  to  power;  but  it  forgets  that 
it  is  only  a  freedom  under  and  in  accordance  with  God's 
laws.  The  Divine  government,  in  every  sphere,  gives 
room  for  the  largest  freedom  that  is  consistent  with 
the  good  of  the  creature.  Man  is  a  free  being,  tho 
gravitation  binds  him  down  to  the  earth;  and  one  may 
well  doubt  if  he  would  be  any  freer,  or  any  better  off, 
if  there  were  in  some  way  given  him  the  power  to  run 
up  the  sky  against  gravitation. 

If  there  is  one  thing  evident  to  a  thinking  man,  it 
is  that  freedom  of  discourse  can  never  be  reached  by 
casting  away  the  experience  of  ages,  defying  all  the 
principles  found  in  human  nature,  and  running  counter 
to  all  the  laws  of  God's  world.  In  truth,  such  free- 
dom and  variety  can  only  be  secured  when  working 
under  a  system  of  rules  as  broad  and  complete  as  the 
facts  of  nature  which  center  in  eloquence.  These 
principles  will  always  admit  and  prepare  the  way  for 
perfect  freedom  and  infinite  variety,  with  the  same  ease 
with  which  a  few  ultimate  chemical  elements  prepare 
for  the  variety  of  that  vast  realm  of  nature  in  which 
the  great  Maker  never  repeats  himself.  It  is  not  the 
sermon,  but  the  man,  that  becomes  stereotyped;  and  no 
taking  of  divisions  out  of  the  sermon  will  remedy  that. 
What  is  needed  is  not  freedom  from  rules,  but  freedom 
under  rules;  and  this  only  comes  by  those  ways,  so 
hard  to  human  nature — by  agony  of  soul  and  sweat  of 
brow;  or,  to  express  it  in  less  formidable,  because 
more  familiar  and  less  weighed  phrase,  which  yet  at 
bottom  contains  the  same  terrible  meaning — by  knowl- 
edge and  practise.     Freedom  without  rule,  at  the  first 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  23I 

license,  becomes,  in  its  progress,  the  dullest  of  for- 
mality, and  ends  in  the  unhelpful  liberty  of  the  sweep- 
ing dust — utter  dissolution. 

(II)    Correct   Theory  Emphasized  and  Unfolded. 

Such  a  survey  of  the  field  we  have  been  traversing, 
with  the  application  of  the  proper  test  to  these  partial 
theories,  has  prepared  for  the  reaffirmation,  with  in- 
creased emphasis,  of  the  necessity  for  a  thorough 
knowledge,  on  the  part  of  the  pulpit  orator,  both  of 
what  is  to  be  done  by  him  and  how  it  is  to  be  done;  or, 
in  other  words,  of  the  absolute  need  of  a  more  correct, 
complete,  and  consistent  theory  of  sacred  eloquence. 

Taking  into  account  all  the  elements  properly  enter- 
ing into  the  discussion — the  shortcomings  of  the  theo- 
ries and  the  practical  evil  resulting  from  them;  the 
necessity  of  right  views  in  order  to  the  most  success- 
ful work;  the  state  of  science  and  art  to  which  the 
century  has  brought  us;  the  imperative  demand  made, 
by  the  thinking  and  cultivated  portion  of  society,  for 
artistic  excellence  in  the  presentation  of  God's  truth — 
the  need  that  has  been  affirmed  must,  we  think,  be 
admitted.  The  principles  at  the  foundation  of  this 
conclusion  are  simple.  If  a  mechanic,  working  blindly, 
can  not  do  worthy  work,  then  an  artist,  in  the  sublimest 
of  arts,  can  not  blindly  do  noble  work.  Give  him  the 
light  of  true  principle  for  his  guidance.  If  a  theory, 
right  in  its  principles,  is  inevitably  wrong  in  its  opera- 
tions, then  let  no  man,  in  the  highest  sphere  of 
effort,  where  every  word  is  trembling  with  destinies 
immortal,  attempt  to  deliver  God's  message  with  such 
a  theory.  Let  him  right  the  wrong.  If  the  progress 
of  science  has  made  an  art  of  oratory  possible,  then 


232       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

let  not  him  who  is  sent  to  be  an  orator  for  Christ 
think  to  work  acceptably  to  the  Master,  or  success- 
fully, without  systematic  knowledge  of  it.  Give  him 
all  that  may  be  known,  to  use  in  his  great  mission. 
If  there  is  a  right  and  sure  method  of  reaching,  hold- 
ing, and  swaying  the  thinking,  educated  men  of  the 
country  by  the  truth  of  God,  let  no  messenger  of  God 
scoff  at  or  neglect  that  method.  Give  him  the  mastery 
of  it.  By  rightly  becoming  "all  things  to  all  men," 
some  will  assuredly  be  saved.  It  is  preeminently  the 
duty  of  the  preacher,  in  these  times,  to  fail  not  to  ascer- 
tain, at  the  outset,  the  correct  method  of  doing  God's 
work.  He  will  honor  just  that,  and,  other  things  being 
equal,  crown  it,  alone  and  above  all,  with  the  largest 
and  most  notable  success. 

A  complete  and  consistent  working-theory  on  this 

subject,  such  as  the  preacher  needs,   must   embrace 

_.        .     .       certain  fundamental  principles  that  he 

Correct         should  understand  clearly  and  formulate 

Working-Theory,  carefully,  if  they  are  to  be  of  the  utmost 

service  to  him  in  his  preaching. 

These  principles  need  to  be  the  more  carefully  con- 
sidered, because  of  the  false  and  superficial  views  of 
rhetoric  and  oratory  that  have  been  so  long  in  vogue. 
The  shallow  platitudes  and  empirical  rules  of  the  Blair 
school  of  rhetoric  seem  to  have  shaped,  to  a  very 
large  extent,  the  views  of  rhetoric  in  the  public  school 
and  the  university,  and  of  the  homiletics  of  the  theo- 
logical seminaries.  Until  the  preacher  is  absolutely 
set  free  from  the  trammels  imposed  by  this  artificial 
system,  he  must  attain  to  pulpit  power,  if  at  all,  in 
spite  of  the  instructions  and  so-called  principles  given 
him  for  his  guidance.  Hence,  the  importance  of 
special  attention  to  this  subject. 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  233 

In  considering  how  truth,  especially  Gospel  and 
saving  truth,  is  rationally  to  be  communicated  to  men, 
so  as  to  affect  and  transform  them,  it  is  necessary  to 
fix  upon  the  practical  ideas  in  man  and  the  rhetorical 
and  oratorical  principles  by  which  men  are  to  be 
reached.  These  suggest  the  questions  that  are  to  be 
asked  and  answered  in  order  to  construct  the  right 
working-theory  of  preaching  as  an  art. 

What  are  the  practical  ideas  in  man,  to  which  appeal 
must   be    made   and   through   which   the     i   Practical 
truth  is  to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the    Ideas  in  Man. 
soul  ?     There    are    multitudes    who   apparently    have 
never  learned  that  there  are  any  such  ideas. 

One  reason  why  much  of  the  presentation  of  truth  is 
powerless  is,  no  doubt,  because  it  awakens  no  interest 
in  the  one  who  hears  it.  Unless  there  is  something  in 
the  soul  of  man  to  which  the  truth  appeals,  it  might  be 
just  as  well  not  to  present  it  at  all.  Unless  there  is 
something  in  the  soul  to  which  to  attach  the  truth  in 
such  a  way  as  to  lead  to  action,  it  will  certainly  be  vain 
to  attempt  to  present  it  to  that  soul.  If  the  hearer 
were  a  mere  intellectual  machine,  without  emotional 
or  practical  capacities  or  ideas,  it  would  be  vain  to 
hope  for  his  enlightenment  or  salvation  through  the 
Gospel.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  who  presents  the 
truth  has  no  knowledge,  or  no  clear  knowledge,  of 
what  those  capacities  and  ideas  are — so  that  he  can  not 
intelligently  bring  the  truth  into  connection  with  its 
natural  and  rational  points  af  attachment  in  the  man — 
if  he  accomplishes  anything  by  the  way  of  enlighten- 
ment or  salvation,  it  will  be  by  sheer  accident.  The 
great  importance  of  gaining  a  clear  knowledge  of  these 
practical  ideas  is  thus  made  manifest. 

So  far  as  we  are  aware,  there  is  but  one  clear  and 


234      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

adequate  presentation  of  these  ideas — that  made  by 
Dr.  Francis  Theremin  of  Berlin,  and  translated  by  the 
late  Dr.  William  G.  T.  Shedd,  with  an  Introductory 
Essay,  in  the  little  book  entitled  Eloquence  a  Virtue; 
or^  Outlines  of  a  Systematic  Rhetoric.  This  book  is 
the  abstract  presentation  of  those  ideas.  Later  in  life, 
Dr.  Theremin  published  a  companion  volume,  enti- 
tled Demosthenes  und  Massillon^  which  has  not  been 
translated,  in  which  he  presents  these  principles  in 
concrete  shape,  or  as  embodied  in  the  orations  of 
Demosthenes  and  the  sermons  of  Massillon. 

The  fundamental  practical  idea  is  that  of  truth.  It 
is  assumed  that  man  has  a  natural  interest  in  truth;  an 
Practical  Idea  interest  that,  in  its  abnormal  develop- 
of  Truth.  ment,  leads  to  curiosity,  and,  in  its  nor- 
mal, to  scientific  investigation  and  research.  That 
which  is  presented  to  man  as  truth,  so  far  as  it  is 
appreciated  as  such,  interests  him.  The  appeal  of  the 
orator  or  preacher,  from  the  purely  rational  point  of 
view,  is  an  appeal  to  this  practical  idea  of  truth.  But 
even  if  -man  were  in  an  ideal  intellectual  and  moral 
condition,  appeals  to  truth  would  still  be  insufficient. 
Much  more,  evidently,  must  this  be  the  case  with  man 
as  he  is,  often  stupefied  by  ignorance  and  blinded  by 
sin.  Other  and  more  distinctively  practical  ideas  must 
come  in  to  supplement  that  of  truth. 

The  practical  idea  to  which  appeal  is  perhaps  most 
universally  made  is  that  of  happiness.  It  may  be 
Practicalldea  assumed  that  every  man  desires  happi- 
of  Happiness,  ness,  or,  at  least,  desires  to  avoid  its 
opposite;  and  that  men  will  act  and  act  energetically 
to  secure  happiness  or  to  avoid  unhappiness.  This  is 
one  of  the  powerful  motive-principles  in  man;  indeed 
the  most  powerful  of  these  principles  in  man  regarded 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  235 

from  the  animal  and  selfish  side  of  his  nature.  That 
which  promises  to  secure  or  to  increase  man's  happi- 
ness is,  therefore,  of  peculiar  interest  to  him;  moves 
and  rouses  him  to  action.  The  truth,  the  scheme  of 
conduct,  or  the  call  to  action,  that  appeals  to  this 
practical  idea,  may  be  expected  to  lead  man  to  accept 
the  view,  pursue  the  course,  or  perform  the  action  to 
which  these  considerations  invite  him,  in  order  to 
secure  the  happiness  which  his  nature  craves. 

But  happiness  is  not  one  of  the  higher  and  nobler 
ideas.  It  has  nothing  in  it  that  leads  to  the  ideal.  It 
has  nothing  in  it  that  is  morally  or  es-  Practical  Idea 
sentially  elevating.  The  idea  of  virtue^  of  Perfection, 
or  perfection,  comes  in  to  supplement  those  of  truth 
and  happiness.  It  assumes  that  man  desires  the  per- 
fect, according  to  his  idea  of  perfection,  which  may  be 
either  good  or  bad,  and  which  may  have  reference  to 
either  the  animal,  the  intellectual,  or  the  spiritual. 
In  connection  with  this  a  man's  ideal  is  high  or  low, 
according  as  his  character  is  high  or  low,  or  his  views 
high  or  low. 

But  even  the  pursuit  of  the  ideal,  or  of  perfection, 
may  be  merely  selfish.  The  culture-theories  lift  men 
into  egoism  and  indifference  to  the  practical  Idea 
needs  of  humanity,  and  may  lead  them  of  Duty, 
only  to  supreme  vanity  and  supercilious  airs.  It  needs 
the  idea  of  dtcty  to  supplement  it  with  the  grip  of 
eternal  obligation,  and  to  take  the  man  outside  of  and 
above  himself.  This,  when  one  has  been  bound  to 
Christ  by  the  obligations  of  his  redemption  and  the 
power  of  an  endless  life,  becomes  the  supreme  and  all- 
controlling  principle,  taking  in  and  subsidizing  in  the 
Christian  life,  faith,  hope,  and  love,  all  directed  toward 
him  who  is  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life. 


236     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

These  are  the  great  practical  points  of  attachment 
for  the  truth,  in  its  work  of  transforming  character  and 
life,  as  that  truth  reaches  man  in  the  preacher's  mes- 
sage, emphasized  by  ''  the  still,  small  voice,"  of  the 
Spirit  of  God. 

But  what  are  the  principles  and  rules  of  rhetorical 

and  oratorical  method  that  must  govern  the  preacher, 

-  „  .    .  -       in  his  presentation  of  truth  to  men,  if  it 
2.  Principles  ^  ' 

of  Rhetorical    is    to   be    effective  ?      This   question   of 
Method.       method   is  the  second   of  the  questions 
that  must  be  answered  by  the  preacher  in  arriving  at 
a  complete  and  consistent  working-theory  of  preach- 
ing as  an  art. 

Rhetorical  method,  according  to  the  common  notion, 
is  a  matter  of  style.  Its  essence  consists  in  the  *'  tricks 
of  rhetoric."  This  is  simply  a  matter  of  puerilities. 
If  rhetoric  has  to  do  only  with  the  manner  of  saying 
little  or  nothing,  or  little  nothings,  it  is  an  abomina- 
tion pure  and  simple. 

A  broad  theory  of  rhetorical  method  must  go  back 
to  the  Aristotelian  idea  and  analysis,  and  make  the 
what  of  discourse  the  basis  and  end  of  the  how.  It 
must  take  in  invention,  which  has  to  do  with  the  fur- 
nishing of  thought,  in  kind  and  form  suited  for  dis- 
course; and  style,  which  has  to  do  with  the  manner  of 
molding  that  thought  in  suitable  forms  of  speech;  and 
it  must  make  full  note  of  the  fact  that  the  latter  is 
strictly  and  wholly  subordinate  to  the  former. 

The  Rheto7'ic  of  Archbishop  Whately,  prepared 
originally  as  an  article  for  the  Encyclopaedia  Bri- 
tannica,  had  the  merit  of  restoring  invention,  as  a 
part  of  rhetoric,  to  its  rightful  place;  and  of  going 
back  again  to  the  old  and  complete  Aristotelian 
analysis  of  the  subject,  after  it  has  been  overlaid  by 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  237 

the  shallownesses  of  Boileau  and  Blair  and  all  the  rest 
of  their  kind.  It  made  rhetoric  a  matter  of  brains 
once  more,  after  it  had  been  so  long  a  matter  of  mere 
breath;  but  Whately's  attempt  was  encyclopedic, 
rather  than  scientific,  and  so  of  comparatively  little 
value  except  as  a  reminder  of  a  better  way,  and  an 
index  pointing  along  that  way. 

Of  all  the  works  that  have  been  inspired  by  Whately, 
one  of  the  most  complete  with  which  we  are  acquainted 
— and  the  one  that  presents  the  principles  and  rules 
of  rhetorical  method  in  the  best  logical  and  scien- 
tific form,  for  the  preacher's  use — is  the  Art  of  Dis- 
course^  by  the  late  Dr.  Henry  N.  Day  of  New  Haven. 
It  presents  a  complete  working-scheme  of  the  subject, 
which  a  writer  or  speaker,  when  once  he  has  grasped 
it,  can  carry  into  and  apply  with  ease  to  any  depart- 
ment of  discourse  or  of  public  speaking  with  which 
he  may  have  to  do. 

Under  **  Invention,"  the  work  unfolds  with  wonder- 
ful precision  the  various  processes  by  which  truth,  in 
its  practical  bearing,  may  be  mediated  to  principles  and 
the   human   mind.      First,    comes    *' Ex- Processes  of  In- 
planation,"  by  which  the  speaker,  appeal-       vention. 
ing  to  the  intellect  of  the  hearer,  gives  him  a  new  con- 
ception of  truth  or  beauty  or  goodness,  or  removes  or 
modifies  an  old  and  dominant  conception.     Its  meth- 
ods   embrace    narration,   description,  division,   parti- 
tion,  exemplification,   and  comparison   and   contrast. 
Secondly,  comes  ''  Confirmation,"  by  which,  appealing 
still  to  the  intellect,  the  speaker  leads  his  hearer  to  a 
new  judgment  regarding  truth,  beauty,  or  goodness,  or 
removes  or  modifies  one  already  dominant  in  the  mind. 
The  treatment  embraces  the  entire  doctrine  of  proof, 
in  its  positive  and  negative  forms.      Thirdly,  comes 


238    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

"Excitation,"  by  which,  appealing  to  the  emotional 
nature,  the  speaker  seeks  to  rouse  the  feelings  of  his 
hearer  toward  some  form  of  truth,  beauty,  or  good- 
ness, or  to  remove  or  modify  some  already  prevailing 
feeling.  The  treatment  presents  the  various  forms  of 
moving  the  feelings,  as  by  pathetic  explanation,  by 
appeal  to  sympathy,  etc.  Lastly,  comes  ''  Persuasion," 
by  which,  appealing  to  the  will,  the  speaker  brings  to 
bear  reasons  and  motives,  to  rouse  to  some  new  choice 
or  purpose  or  action,  in  view  of  the  true,  the  beautiful, 
or  the  good,  or  endeavors  to  remove  or  dissuade  from, 
some  dominant  choice  or  purpose  or  habitual  mode  of 
action. 

Under  ** Style,"  with  equal  breadth  of  thought  and 

vision,  the  work  unfolds  the  properties  of  style.     Be- 

Principles and  ginning  with  the  "Absolute  Properties," 

Essentials  of  or  those  that  rise  out  of  the  very  nature 
Style.  q£  style,  as  making  use  of  langi>age,  it 
presents  the  entire  range  of  oral,  suggestive,  and  gram- 
matical properties,  as  they  are  nowhere  else  presented. 
Proceeding  to  the  '*  Relative  Properties,"  or  those 
that  rise  out  of  the  nature  of  style,  as  related  to  the 
speaker  or  to  the  hearer,  it  presents  the  relative  sub- 
jective properties,  embracing  significance,  naturalness, 
and  coherence;  and  the  relative  objective  properties, 
embracing  clearness,  energy,  and  beauty. 

It  would  probably  be  difficult  to  find,  anywhere  else, 
in  any  language,  so  compendious  and  helpful  a  view  of 
this  old  art,  for  the  preacher's  use  in  training  himself 
for  his  work  and  directing  himself  in  it;  and  it  is" 
believed  that  this  is  the  unanimous  judgment  of  the 
strong  and  solid  thinkers  and  writers  who  have  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  book  and  mastered  its  principles. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  the  knowl- 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  239 

edge  of  the  practical  ideas,  and  of  the  scientific 
method  of  rhetoric,  is  not  enough  to  give  a  public 
speaker  power  of  the  highest  order  3.  p-orceof  True 
with  men.  There  must  be  a  7nan  back  Manhood, 
of  all  these,  a  soul  conscious  of  a  worthy  mission  and 
message  and  inspired  by  these,  before  the  working- 
theory  can  be  wrought  by  effectively.  It  used  to  be 
said  that  **the  orator  must  be  a  good  man."  It  is 
manifest  that  this,  in  its  literal  sense,  is  not  in 
accordance  with  fact;  but  if  ''good  man"  is  used  in 
the  sense  of  "possessed  of  large  manhood,"  the 
meaning  intended  is  true  and  valuable.  Sincerity, 
at  least  for  the  time  being,  the  successful  speaker 
should  have,  so  that  he  is  able  to  throw  his  whole  soul 
into  his  subject,  with  which  he  is  heartily  in  sym- 
pathy— if  he  is  to  carry  with  him  his  audience  to  any 
permanent  conclusion.  This  is  most  true  in  the  case 
of  the  preacher.  He,  of  all  men,  needs  to  be  abso- 
lutely true  and  sincere,  if  his  instruction  or  persuasion 
is  to  be  of  a  permanent  character.  We  have  known 
various  preachers,  noted  for  power  in  producing  an 
immediate  popular  effect,  whose  lives  contradicted 
and  neutralized  their  preaching;  and  we  have  found 
the  religious  results  in  these  cases  to  be  neither  good 
nor  permanent.  There  must  be,  then,  as  has  just  been 
said,  a  true  and  sincere  Christian  soul,  possessed  with 
its  message  of  truth  and  grace,  back  of  all  the  knowl- 
edge of  principles  and  method,  to  give  to  the  preacher 
real  power,  and  to  enable  him  to  secure  permanent 
spiritual  results  in  the  saving  of  men. 

Too  great  stress  can  hardly  be  laid  upon  this 
requirement  of  a  correct  working-theory  of  preaching 
as  an  art,  if  the  preacher  is  to  be  able  intelligently  to 
aim  at  and  secure  the  best  results. 


240      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

II.  The  Practise  must  Be  Conformed  to  the 
Correct  Theory. 

In  accordance  with  the  general  answer  already 
given  to  the  question  under  consideration,  the  practise 
of  the  pulpit  must  be  conformed  to  right  theory,  and 
to  the  wants  of  the  times,  so  as  to  present  God's 
truth  to  men,  in  Tts  practical  bearings  and  with  fresh- 
ness and  vividness.  Consider  now  7natter  and  7nanner^ 
in  the  respects  herein  involved,  apart  from  each  other, 
and  then  glance  at  the  spirit  of  the  preacher,  that 
must  help  to  consecrate  both  matter  and  manner. 

(I)     In  the  Matter  of  Preaching. 

The  matter  of  the  preaching  for  these  times  must 
be,  at  the  foundation,  God's  truth  in  its  great  practical 
bearings  on  the  actual  relations  of  men  in  life. 

God's  truth  first  of  all  and   fundamentally.     It  is 
admitted  that  the  methods  of  one  age  are  never  pre- 
1  God's  Truth  ^^^^^7  suited   to    the    needs  of   another; 
First  and      but  the  great  essential  truths  of  God's 
Fundamental.  Word,  in  their  relations  to  man's  neces- 
sities, are  unchangeable. 

We,  therefore,  confess  to  no  sympathy  with  the 
tendency  of  Professor  Draper  and  the  neologizers  of 
his  school,  who  seem  almost  desirous,  in  their  pro- 
found admiration  for  the  physical  sciences,  to  substi- 
tute the  truth  of  nature  for  the  truth  of  God's  Word, 
in  the  training  of  the  theological  seminary  and  in  the 
deliverances  of  the  pulpit.  It  is  true  that,  in  order  to 
be  best  fitted  for  any  great  mission,  a  man  should 
have  attained  to  that  kind  and  degree  of  culture  that 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  24I 

will  insure  to  him  right  and  complete  views  of  every 
department  in  nature,  as  well  as  in  art,  and  in  the 
higher  sphere  of  theology;  but  that  is  farthest  pos- 
sible from  justifying  the  claims  advanced  by  the  pro- 
fessor, in  The  Future  Civil  Policy  of  Ainerica,  for  either 
the  predominance,  or  the  exclusive  use  of,  the  physical 
sciences,  in  even  the  preliminary  training  of  the  clergy. 
We  protest  against  such  a  view,  and,  while  we  humbly 
bow  before  him  in  his  own  department,  fearlessly 
affirm  the  incapacity  of  Professor  Draper  or  any  other 
student  of  mere  physical  science,  to  decide  what  is 
the  need  of  the  clergy,  and  to  mark  out  the  course  by 
which  they  must  be  prepared  for  their  work.  It  is 
high  time  that  when  such  men  as  Tyndall,  Huxley,  and 
Spencer  give  forth  ex-cathedra  utterances  on  subjects 
of  which  they  are  utterly  and  hopelessly  ignorant — 
subjects  entirely  beyond  the  range  of  their  own 
departments  of  thought — that  such  utterance  should 
be  given  just  the  weight  that  properly  belongs  to 
them — i.  e. ,  notie  at  all. 

We  base  our  protest,  first,  upon  natural  unfitness; 
for,  as  a  general  rule,  no  mere  mathematician  or 
scientist  is  capable  of  forming  a  correct  judgment 
concerning  the  great  issues  of  the  higher  world  of 
spirit.  The  constant  repetition  of  the  intellectual 
process  involved  in  the  reasoning  with  necessary 
truth,  that  2-|-2-}-2=6,  or  that  the  known  and  meas- 
ured forces  a-\-b-\-c^:id^  does  not  prepare  a  mind  for 
moving  with  ease  and  certainty  in  that  region  where, 
in  dealing  with  contingent  truth,  the  spiritual  forces 
combining  the  known  and  measured  with  the  unknown 
and  unmeasured,  give  us  a-\-x-\-y-\-^X.Q..  :=z. 

We  base  our  protest,  secondly,  on  evident  prejudice 
and    want    of    knowledge    in    the    premises,    as    in- 


242       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

capacitating  Professor  Draper,  for  no  one  who  could 
write  one  sentence  that  occurs  in  the  book  above 
referred  to  (p.  277),  and  which  we  quote,  can  pre- 
tend to  have  mastered  the  facts  requisite  for  the 
formation  of  a  judgment  in  such  a  matter.  Speaking 
of  the  opposition  of  the  leaders  in  religion  to  science, 
Professor  Draper  says  : 

"  The  result  of  this  condition  of  things  is  that  many  of  the  most 
important,  the  most  powerful  and  exact  branches  of  human  knowl- 
edge, have  been  forced  into  a  position  they  never  would  have 
voluntarily  assumed,  and  have  been  compelled  to  put  themselves  on 
their  defense.  Astronomy,  in  the  case  of  the  globular  form  of  the 
earth  and  its  position  as  a  subordinate  planet ;  geology,  as  respects 
its  vast  antiquity  ;  zoology,  on  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  species  ; 
chemistry,  on  the  unchangeability  of  matter  and  the  indestructibility 
of  force." 

We  submit,  that  when  both  are  rightly  understood, 
there  is  no  conflict  between  the  doctrines  of  religion 
and  the  results  of  the  investigation  of  true  science. 
The  same  essential  narrowness  is  manifest  in  this  pas- 
sage, as  was  exhibited  at  a  later  day,  in  the  professor's 
confident  belief  that  his  Conflict  of  Science  and  Religion 
was  destined  to  give  the  death-blow  to  the  religion  of 
the  Bible  ! 

The  truth  of  science  has  its  value,  which  we  would 
by  no  means  underrate,  and  we  hail  all  knowledge  of 
it  as  a  gift  of  God;  but  nature  has  no  revelation  of 
salvation  to  make  to  sinners  ;  that,  the  one  thing  es- 
sential, is  supernatural.  If  the  Church  of  God  has  one 
living  conviction,  it  is  this  :  that  nothing  but  the  re- 
vealed truth  of  God's  Word  can  save  men.  God  him- 
self affirms  as  much.  God's  truth,  then,  first  of  all, 
and  above  all. 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  243 

And  yet,  guarding  against  another  extreme,  we  are 
far  from  having  anything  like  full  sym-   2.  God's  Truth 
pathy  with  that  tendency   of  mind  that     in  Practical 
would  reduce  God's  Word,  as  presented      Relations, 
from  the  pulpit,  to  lifeless  intellectual  theory  or  dry 
abstraction. 

The  Bible  is  an  intensely  practical  book.  There  are 
certain  great  questions  that  no  thinking  man  can  fail 
to  ask  himself — Whence  am  I  ?  Upon  whom  can  I  de- 
pend ?  Whence  the  evil  in  the  world  ?  Is  there  any 
way  of  escape  ?  What  is  that  way  ?  Guizot — in  his 
Meditations  on  Christianity,  in  demonstrating  that  the 
Bible,  in  its  doctrines  of  creation,  providence,  original 
sin,  incarnation,  and  redemption,  furnishes  the  only 
correct  and  satisfying  answer  to  these  questions — has 
at  the  same  time  brought  out  the  essence  of  God's 
Word,  and  shown  how  prominent  a  thing  is  its  perfect 
adaptation  to  our  human  wants.  These  questions  have 
to  do,  principally,  not  with  man's  imaginations,  not 
with  his  logic,  good  or  bad,  not  with  his  taste,  rude 
or  cultivated;  but  with  life  and  death.  The  Bible 
appeals  to  practical  instincts,  is  adapted  to  practical 
needs,  proposes  to  meet  practical  issues,  puts  its 
truth  in  concrete,  practical  shapes.  Preaching  that 
does  not  appeal  to  such  practical  instincts,  that  does 
not  supply  such  pressing  needs,  that  does  not  meet 
such  living  issues,  that  does  not  put  itself  in  such 
direct  and  forceful  shape,  can  not  be  according  to  the 
standard  of  God's  Word.  Its  truth  is  no  dead  ortho- 
doxy, but  a  living  and  life-giving  thing.  Not  abstract, 
didactic  theology,  but  God's  truth,  as  the  Bible  pre- 
sents it,  must  be  the  matter  of  the  pulpit  in  these  days. 
The  preacher  who  is  satisfied  with  the  bald  statement, 
and  theological  or  Scriptural  demonstration  of  a  doc- 


244       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

trine,  closed  up  with,  *'  this  is  an  important  truth,"  is 
not  fulfilling  his  mission.  His  hearers  would  probably 
admit  all  that  beforehand.  But  **  science,  falsely  so- 
called,"  and  reason,  better  called  unreason,  we  admit 
have  their  cavils  and  objections,  and  these  are  real 
troubles  to  that  hearer;  and  it  is  to  meet  these  that 
he  seeks  aid  from  the  pulpit.  If  it  afford  it  not,  it 
leaves  him  to  grope  on  in  the  dark.  Didactic  theology 
is,  so  to  speak,  the  skeleton,  that  must  be  clothed  with 
living  tissues,  and  have  infused  the  vital  fluids,  and 
inbreathed  the  breath  of  God,  before  it  can  be  a 
power  in  our  world.  The  rightful  demands  of  men, 
and  of  a  correct  theory  of  oratory,  can  only  be  satis- 
fied by  God's  truth  in  its  practical  bearings. 

But  there  is  need  of  a  more  specific  statement  in 
unfolding  what  is  meant  by  this.  The  aim  of  gospel 
preaching  is  usually  stated  to  be  *'  the  saving  of  sin- 
ners and  the  edification  of  saints."  As  these  are  only 
different  aspects  of  the  one  work  of  salvation,  and  as 
both  are  accomplished  through  the  instrumentality  of 
substantially  the  same  truth,  the  statement  may  be 
properly  varied,  provided  the  essence  of  the  matter  be 
retained.  It  may  be  rightly  said,  then,  that  the  aim 
of  the  message  of  the  servant  of  God  is  to  lead  to  the 
conversion  of  men,  to  develop  Christian  activity,  and 
to  direct  the  Christian  work  in  the  divinely  constituted 
relations  of  the  world  in  which  it  must  be  carried  on — 
and  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that,  in  order  to  adapt 
itself  to  this  aim,  the  appropriate  message  from  God 
must  be  directed  to  the  soul,  from  that  side  from  which 
it  is  possible,  humanly  speaking,  to  move  it.  The 
preaching  for  this  practical  age  must  take  into  special 
account  all  these  things;  and,  so  far  as  the  ten- 
dency to  practicalness  is  concerned,  the  success  of 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  245 

the   pulpit   will    depend    upon    giving   wise   heed    to 
them. 

It  becomes  evident  at  once  that,  while  all  revealed 
truth  is  to  be  proclaimed  to  men,  according  to  the  pro- 
portion of  faith,  there  are  yet,  so  to  speak,  certain 
centers  of  crystallization  about  which  that  truth  gath- 
ers, and  in  subordination  to  which  it  is  to  be  set 
forth  if  it  is  to  be  effective. 

The  first  aim  of  the  Gospel  is  to  lead  to  the  con- 
version of  men,  or  to  lead  to  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  The  preaching  that,  under  God,  is  to  attain 
this  end,  must,  therefore,  first  of  all  and  chiefly,  pre- 
sent the  grand  converting  doctrine  of  God's  word, 
**  Christ  crucified."  Salvation  is  by  belief  in  the  Lord 
Jesus,  and  reliance  upon  him,  not  as  a  teacher,  not 
as  a  sufferer,  not  as  a  martyr,  but  as  the  divinely 
appointed  and  divine-human  substitute  for  sinners. 
Take  this  doctrine  out  of  the  Bible,  and  all  that  is  dis- 
tinctive, all  that  is  fundamental,  all  that  is  saving,  is 
gone.  It  is  not  merely  some  abstract  conception  of 
the  perfection  of  the  Savior's  character,  or  of  the 
beauty  of  his  life,  or  of  the  sublimity  of  his  teachings, 
or  of  the  glory  of  the  throne  to  which  he  is  exalted  as 
Mediator — not  any  or  all  of  these,  that  it  pleases  the 
Holy  Ghost  to  use  chiefly  in  the  conversion  of  sinners. 
Christ  dying  for  our  sins  is  the  converting  doctrine  of 
the  Gospel,  and  while  all  the  rest  must  be  preached,  it 
must  be  with  constant  reference  to  this,  and  with  con- 
stant aim  to  impress  this.  All  this  must  be  preached 
in  this,  and  this  in  all.  The  being  and  nature  of  God 
and  the  lost  condition  of  man  are  to  be  unfolded;  the 
law  is  to  be  preached  in  all  its  length  and  breadth,  and 
with  all  its  terrors,  and  every  possible  motive  to  be 
plied — but  this  with  the  view  of  bringing  the  sinner 


246     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

to  a  sense  of  his  need  of  Christ,  and  to  acceptance  of 
him.  Christ  crucified  for  the  sinner,  and  presented 
with  a  view  to  his  salvation,  is  thus  the  first  center  of 
crystallization. 

But  the  Christian  is  to  become  a  worker  for  God,  or, 
as  Scripture  has  it,  a  co-worker  with  him.  To  lead  him 
to  this  is  the  second  aim  of  the  preacher.  In  all  true 
and  complete  religious  development,  Christianity  must 
appear  not  only  as  a. saving  doctrine,  but  also  as  an 
active  life.  In  an  age  preeminently  demanding  action, 
with  dead  churches  all  around  them,  it  should  need  no 
argument  to  convince  the  leading  men  that  special  at- 
tention must  be  directed  to  this  phase  of  religious  cul- 
ture. The  question.  How  shall  men  be  converted  to 
God  ?  is  not  more  intensely  practical  than  the  ques- 
tion. How  shall  the  energies  of  the  Christian  Church 
be  brought  out  and  gathered  up,  and  directed  most 
powerfully  and  efficiently  to  the  great  end  of  the 
world's  salvation  ? 

Now,  the  logic  of  Christian  living,  aside  from  the 
power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  eminently  simple :  ''  Christ 
has  lived  and  died  for  me,  therefore  I  will  live  and  die 
for  him";  or,  as  Paul  puts  it,  ''The  love  of  Christ 
constraineth  us."  The  doctrine  of  the  cross,  as 
unfolding  the  heart  of  God  to  men,  must  be  preached 
in  such  a  way  as  to  deepen  and  call  forth  this  sense  of 
obligation,  and  lead  to  that  work  for  want  of  more  of 
which  the  generations  are  perishing.  The  ruin  of  the 
world  ;  the  mission  of  the  Church  to  save  it  ;  the 
agencies  by  which  this  is  to  be  accomplished  ;  right 
methods  of  work  for  the  heathen  at  home  and  abroad, 
with  the  progress  and  prospects;  individual  respon- 
sibility in  the  matter  must  be  constantly  set  forth, 
and  the  appeals  in  view  of  them  made  urgent  and  irre- 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  247 

sistible  by  the  application  of  the  power  of  Christ's 
constraining  love,  until  we  have  a  Church  which,  by 
adding  works  to  its  faith,  shall  demonstrate  that  faith 
to  be  living,  and  not  dead.  All  must  be  preached  in 
connection  with  this  living  faith,  and  this  living  faith 
must  be  aimed  at  and  sought  in  all.  The  doctrine  of 
the  cross,  in  its  relations  to  Christian  activity,  is  thus 
a  second  center  of  crystallization. 

But  Christian  believing  and  working  are  to  be  done 
in  the  world  as  it  is  in  connection  with  its  divinely 
ordained  institutions.     There  are  three  3.  God's  Truth 
great  divine  institutions — the  family,  the    ^^  ^®  ^^®^* 
Church,  and  the  State  ;    the  family  and      Relations, 
the  State  as  truly  of  divine  ordaining  as  the  Church  ; 
the  State  appointed  to  embrace  all  men ;  the  Church  to 
embrace  all  Christian  men;  and  the  family   Three  Divine 
the  kernel  of  the  State  and  the  type  of    Institutions, 
the  Church.     The  Christian  is  not  an  abstraction,  but 
a  being  living  in  all    these   relations,    and   therefore 
needing  direction  in  them  all.     God's  law — not  some 
human  law — reaches  and  claims  supremacy  over  him 
in  every  position  he  may  occupy  either  in  or  in  relation 
to  these  three  institutions. 

There  is  a  profound,  and,  we  hold.  Scriptural  truth 
bearing  on  this  point,  and  one  to  which  this  genera- 
tion needs  to  give  special  heed,  brought  out  most 
powerfully  by  Julius  Miiller  in  his  Christian  Doctrine 
of  Sin^  in  the  brief  passage  in  which  he  insists  that 
man  is  not  a  legislator,  that  is  a  justice-maker  or  a  law- 
maker in  the  strict  sense;  but  simply  under  God,  who 
has  himself  made  the  justice  and  ordained  the  law,  a 
law-discerner  and  law-proclaimer.  That  truth  sweeps 
away  the  popular  ideas:  **man  a  law  to  himself"; 
*'the  Church  a  mere   voluntary  association";    **the 


248    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

people  sovereign."  God  in  Christ  is  the  head  of  all, 
and  God's  Word  the  law  of  all. 

Now,  God's  Word  as  the  law  of  conduct  is  not  the 
rule  of  some  abstract  man,  but  of  the  man  in  the 
family,  the  Church,  and  the  State.  The  minister  of 
God  is  the  divinely  authorized  expounder  of  the  great 
principles  of  this  law  that  apply  to  all  these  relations 
and  to  men  in  them.  It  is  not  simply  his  privilege 
conceded  by  sufferance,  but  his  solemn  duty  to  bring 
that  law  to  bear  in  all  these  aspects,  and  thus  to  make 
God's  own  Word  the  molder  of  sentiment  in  all  the 
relations  of  life.  We  believe  that  the  future  progress 
of  salvation  in  the  Church  will  depend  very  much  upon 
her  recognition  and  appreciation  of  this  her  position 
and  her  duty. 

The  whole  tendency  of  our  national  history  has  been 
toward  putting  God's  messengers  and  his  Word  out 
of  their  rightful  place.  Reaction  in  the  early  history 
against  much-abused  authority  has  in  the  end  run  into 
impatience  of  all  authority,  even  that  which  only  aims 
to  check  the  evil.  The  assumption  of  political  dema- 
gogs, and  of  pulpit  demagogs,  just  as  truly  in  the 
interests  of  evil;  the  vulgar  outcry  against  preaching 
the  moral  and  Christian  principles  that  should  control 
politics  and  statesmanship,  and  the  gross  ultraisms  of 
many  who  assume  to  be  models  in  this  sort  of  preach- 
ing, seemed  to  finish  the  work  of  divorcing  the  Chris- 
tian man  and  preaching  from  all  practical  connection 
with  the  world,  and  thus  to  leave  great  vital  issues  to 
work  themselves  out  with  no  proper  guidance,  and 
to  spread  ruin,  individual,  social,  ecclesiastical,  and 
national,  everywhere. 

It  is  matter  of  rejoicing  that  the  terrible  expe- 
rience of  the  past  has  done  much  to  open  the  eyes 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  249 

of  the  clergy,  and  to  rouse  them  to  a  sense  of  their 
responsibility  as  God's  watchmen  and  to  reinstate 
them  in  their  true  position.  The  present  and  the 
coming  years  demand  the  presentation,  plain,  forcible, 
constant,  such  as  the  past  has  not  known,  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  God's  Word,  applicable  to  all  the  relations  of 
life,  for  after  sowing  the  wind  we  are  reaping  the 
whirlwind  :  in  the  family,  in  new  theories  of  marriage 
and  divorce,  of  the  obedience  and  service  of  children, 
and  all  that;  in  the  Church,  in  independency  and  law- 
lessness, in  the  clogging  of  right  work  by  the  mul- 
tiplication of  voluntary  associations  outside  of  the 
Church,  and  controlled  too  often  by  irresponsible  and 
unfit  men  ;  and  in  the  State — God  save  the  State  ! 
The  principles  out  of  God's  Word  that  furnish  prac- 
tical direction  in  all  these  positions  in  which  he  is  a 
believer  and  worker,  the  Christian  must  especially 
have  in  this  age  in  which  the  old  landmarks  are  being 
removed.  The  law  of  God  in  the  principles  that  apply 
to  the  social,  civil,  and  ecclesiastical  spheres  of  duty 
is  thus  another  of  the  centers  of  crystallization. 

Once  more  all  this  truth  of  God,  whether  it  have 
in  view  the  conversion  of  men,  the  development  of 
Christian  activity,  or  direction  in  social  .  „  ,,  -,  .. 
duty,  must  be  addresed  to  what  are  to  the  Practical 
called  by  Dr.  Theremin  the  practical  ideas.  Ideas. 
The  truth  must  somehow  be  brought  into  living  con- 
nection with  the  soul  to  which  it  is  directed.  Now, 
as  has  been  seen,  by  virtue  of  his  constitution,  *' every 
man  ideally  (tho,  by  reason  of  his  sin,  not  actually) 
wills  the  perfect."  **  Every  man  wills  the  perfect  in 
so  far  as  it  is  specially  determined  and  conditioned  by 
his  peculiar  relations;  this  is  the  idea  of  duty.  Every 
man  wills  to  be  inclined  and  able  to  realize  the  perfect 


250      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE   MINISTRY. 

at  all  times  and  everywhere;  this  is  the  idea  of  virtue. 
Every  man  wills  that  each  and  every  one  of  his  actions 
result  in  a  series  of  internal  and  external  consequences 
that  will  render  the  realization  of  the  perfect  ideal 
easier  for  him  in  the  future  ;  this  is  the  idea  of  hap- 
piness.''    i^t^  Eloquence  a  Virtue,  p.  74.) 

Here  is  the  side  from  which,  oratorically,  man  may 
and  must  be  approached.  Show  him  that  a  thing  is 
due  to  his  manliness,  and  you  have  a  friend  within. 
Connect  a  thing  inseparably  with  his  happiness,  and 
you  have  another  answering  voice.  These  times  call 
for  powerful  addresses  to  these  practical  ideas.  It  is 
one  of  the  pressing  necessities.  By  departure  from  it 
preaching  has  lost  much  of  its  authority  as  well  as 
much  of  its  power.  God's  Word,  especially  as  coming 
from  the  lips  of  Christ  himself,  lays  tremendous  stress 
on  all  of  these  ideas,  even  to  that  one  of  wo,  from 
which  the  tremulous  delicacy  and  subtle  pride  of  this 
age  so  shrink  away.  Success  will  be  won  in  these  days 
only  by  following  the  example  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  in 
his  plain  dealing  with  the  truth  on  these  subjects. 

It  is  an  absolute  necessity  that  the  preaching  of  the 
day  should  take  on  more  of  this  practical  shape  as  to 

The  Present  ^^^  matter.  What  meets  no  living  need 
Duty.  will  never  reach  man;  for  he  is,  after  all, 
a  practical  being,  and  will  never  travel  very  far  out  of 
his  way  for  that  which  can  clearly  be  of  no  use  to  him. 
Speculate  and  abstract  till  you  take  all  the  soul  and 
life  out  of  God's  Word,  and  he  no  longer  wants  it. 
The  mightiest  preachers,  in  moving  power,  have  always 
taken  advantage  of  the  wonderful  common  sense  of 
the  race,  and  made  the  most  of  it;  but  somehow  we  of 
the  pulpit,  in  this  day,  are  slow  to  believe  fallen  men 
endowed  with  common  sense  and  practicalness. 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  251 

We  have  heard  the  broad  statement  made  from  the 
pulpit,  and  that  by  those  credited  with  being  thinking 
men,  that  the  work  of  the  preacher  is  unlike  any  other 
in  the  world,  in  that  the  operation  of  the  principles  of 
cause  and  effect,  and  of  adaptation  of  means  to  end, 
has  no  place  in  it.  Against  this  we  plead,  not  for  a 
rationalizing,  much  less  a  rationalistic  view,  but  for  a 
rational  one;  and  we  hold  that  nothing  in  God's  uni- 
verse is  so  perfectly  adapted  to  the  end  designed  as 
that  Gospel  of  Christ  which  is  confessedly  the  highest 
revelation  of  his  wisdom. 

'  While  God  is  admitted  sovereign,  we  deem  it  de- 
monstrable that,  in  the  ordinary  administration  of 
that  sovereignty,  the  results  of  right  work,  when  done 
in  the  pulpit,  are  not  as  uncertain  as  men  seem  to 
think.  The  Scriptures  read  :  *'  He  that  goeth  forth 
and  weepeth,  bearing  precious  seed,  shall  doubtless 
come  again  with  rejoicing,  bringing  his  sheaves  with 
him."*  ** Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he 
also  reap."  f  With  all  possible  clearness  God  has  pre- 
sented just  what  will  save  the  sinner,  provided  he 
will  comply  wath  the  divine  conditions.  He  has  done 
nothing  more  in  any  sphere.  It  would  be  madness  to 
say  that  he  who  has  provided  redemption  at  such  a 
cost  takes  less  interest  in  the  saving  of  souls  than  in 
the  ordinary  work  of  men.  Dependence  for  the 
results  is  here  upon  the  direct  and  supernatural  power 
of  God,  secured  in  his  promise  to  faith;  and  the  man 
who  does  not  wish  to  cast  away  faith  will  hardly  claim 
that  God's  promise  and  direct  power  are  less  a  de- 
pendence than  the  so-called  laws  of  nature. 

The  difficulty  is  that,    in  our  worldly  wisdom,    we 
have  too  often  mistaken  man,  emasculated  the  Gospel, 
*  Psalm  cxxvi.  6.  f  Gal.  vi.  7. 


252       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

and  distrusted  God:  mistaken  man — foolishly  think- 
ing him  a  fool  or  a  puppet,  to  be  interested  by  sleight- 
of-hand  performances,  rather  than  a  being  once  made 
in  God's  image,  and  having  still  intense  and  earnest 
gazings  upward  toward  the  skies,  and  ceaseless  tho 
undefined  longings  for  something  that  he  feels  to  be 
lacking;  emasculated  the  Gospel — vainly  imagining 
that  which  appeals  to  the  lower  and  perishing  instincts 
mightier  than  that  which  reaches  down  after  what  is 
enduring  and  Godlike  in  him;  distrusted  God — weakly 
losing  confidence  in  that  way  of  bearing  life  to  men 
that  he  has  declared  to  be  the  embodiment  of  his 
highest  wisdom. 

One  thing  that  we  of  this  age  must  learn  anew,  and 
in  its  full  significance,  is  that  these  practical  things, 
that  have  to  do  with  the  conversion  of  men,  with  the 
growth  of  Christian  activity,  and  the  direction  in 
duty  in  the  world,  and  that  appeal  to  man's  highest 
instincts,  have  not  yet  lost  their  power.  They  must 
be  used  more  constantly  and  mightily  in  our  preaching, 
if  we  are  to  expect  great  results  in  the  Master's  service. 
The  Gospel  is  just  what  man  needs;  holding  this,  we 
need  to  preach  it  as  if  we  believed  it.  Man,  by  nature, 
does  not  appreciate  it;  admitting  this,  we  yet  need  to 
preach  it  as  if  he  did,  for  God  has  promised  to  make 
it  a  light  to  the  blind.  We  can  not  save  men  by  preach- 
ing the  Word;  acknowledging  this  with  all  humility, 
we  must  yet,  in  some  sort,  preach  it  as  if,  under  God, 
we  could;  for  God  can  save  and  has  promised  to  make 
it  a  word  of  life.  The  preaching  whose  matter  shall 
be  such  as  has  been  thus  set  forth  can  not  but  be  a 
power  in  the  world,  gaining  the  ear  of  the  perishing 
multitudes,  and,  by  God's  grace,  saving  their  souls. 


THE   PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  253 

(II)     In  THE  Manner  of  Preaching. 

Passing  from  matter  to  manner,  it  is  obvious  that, 
in  respect  of  form,  the  preaching  for  these  times  must 
be  with  freshness  and  vividness,  or  with  power. 

Professor  Day  has  given,  in  his  Art  of  Discourse^ 
previously  referred  to,  a  most  admirable  compendium 
of  the  essential  qualities  of  a  good  style,  i  Principles 
under  the  head  of  '*  Objective  Properties  Giving  Power, 
of  Style."  First  comes  clea7'7iess,  as  truth  must  be 
intelligible  in  order  to  be  felt.  Second  in  order  is 
energy^  as  truth  must  possess  force  and  vividness  in 
order  to  reach  and  stir  men.  Last  in  place  is 
elega7ice^  as  what  offends  good  taste  will  not  readily 
gain  access  to  men,  even  tho  it  be  clear  and  power- 
ful. Professor  Day's  discussion  of  the  principles  of 
style  is  commended  to  any  one  who  may  be  desirous 
of  an  intelligent  guide  on  the  subject.  The  course 
of  the  present  discussion  does  not  lie  in  the  same  line 
with  his  treatise,  as  the  aim  here  is,  not  to  deal  with 
the  general  qualities  of  style,  but  merely  to  call  atten- 
tion to  certain  special  principles  that  have  to  do  with 
adapting  the  style  of  the  pulpit  to  the  needs  of  the 
present  day,  and  with  making  it  more  a  power  with 
the  men  of  this  age. 

In  attaining  that  freshness  and  vividness  for  which 
simplicity  prepares,  there  are,  aside  from  the  general 
laws  of  energy,  certain  principles,  that  enter  more  or 
less  into  the  style  of  the  powerful  preachers  of  all 
times,  as  an  element  in  winning  success,  and  that, 
while  exceedingly  important  always,  are  especially  a 
necessity  to  the  pulpit  of  the  present.  They  may  be 
denominated  Biblical  qualities.  To  enumerate,  in 
brief,  some  of  them  : 


254      CHRIST*S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE   MINISTRY. 

The  Word  of  God  needs  to  be  presented  more  in 

concrete  form.     The  idea,  apparently  of  so  many,  that 

,,,  „        .       the  preacher's  chief  mission  is  to  turn 
(1)  Concrete        .      ^ 

Presentation. of  his  text  into  abstract  truth,  or  "glitter- 
Truth,  jj^g  generality, "  with  which  to  ply  a 
sleepy  congregation,  is  all  wrong.  However  necessary 
the  process  of  abstraction  may  be  for  the  purpose  of 
systematic  theology,  it  is  not  the  Bible  method  of 
reaching  men.  There  was  never  a  truer  utterance 
than  that  of  Coleridge,  in  one  of  the  introductory 
aphorisms,  in  his  Aids  to  Reflection:  **To  restore  a 
commonplace  truth  to  its  first  uncommon  luster,  you 
need  only  translate  it  into  action."  What  we  can  see 
has  power.  The  Lord's  Supper  takes  advantage  of 
this  principle,  and  embodying  the  central  truth  of  the 
Gospel,  addresses  it  to  reason  and  faith,  with  the 
added  power  of  the  senses.  It  is  thus  the  most 
powerful  of  all  presentations  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
cross. 

And  accordingly,  we  find  Scripture  everywhere  pre- 
senting its  truth  largely  in  living  shape  and  relation, 
in  history  and  individual  experience  and  incident,  and 
thereby  attaining  to  a  perpetual  freshness  and  interest. 
The  pulpit  of  a  day  in  which  the  world  presents  every- 
thing in  the  concrete  needs  to  model  after  the  Bible 
in  this  regard.  Volumes  on  faith  in  the  abstract  can 
never  so  unfold  its  nature  to  the  masses  of  men  as 
will  the  exposition  of  that  master  example  in  Abraham's 
offering  of  Isaac.  Volumes  on  parental  responsibility 
in  the  abstract  can  never  so  fix  the  idea  in  the  hearts 
of  men,  in  all  its  fulness,  as  will  that  terribly  solemn 
example  of  a  pious  father's  grief  over  a  favorite  son 
gone  down  to  perdition  through  his  agency,  that  is 
brought  before  us  in  David's  lament  over  his  son  A.bsa- 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  255 

lorn.  For  our  instruction  and  guidance,  God's  Word 
has  put  its  utterances  in  these  forceful  shapes,  and  we 
may  find  in  it  instances  without  number,  applicable  to 
every  possible  phase  of  life,  whether  in  its  faith  and 
work  or  in  its  relations  to  family.  State,  and  Church. 
Here  is  one  of  the  powers  that  God  has  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  ministry,  to  be  used  in  their  mission,  and 
it  is  preeminently  the  demand  of  this  age,  as  well  as 
of  human  nature,  that  it  be  used  freely  and  largely. 

God's  truth  must  be  presented,  as  is  the  Bible  man- 
ner,  with  apt  and  ample  illustrations.     John  Ruskin 

(in  pt.    3,   vol.    ii.,   of   Moderii   ^^^>z^^^'^)  (2)  illustrative 
has   drawn  out  that   noble   theory  that    Presentation 
affirms  of  all  inherent  beauty,  that  it  is      °^  Truth, 
typical  of  the  Divine  attributes.     It  is  a  magnificent 
thing  in  the  metaphysical  profundity  of  its  conception, 
no  less  than  in  the  marvelous  felicity  of  its  delinea- 
tion.    We  take  it  to  be  the  only  true  basis  of  a  correct 
Christian  art-theory. 

Apply  the  same  principle  to  the  world  of  fact  and 
truth,  as  well  as  beauty,  and  it  gives  a  new  element  of 
power  in  the  pulpit.  The  world  in  which  we  live,  in 
its  men,  in  its  relations,  in  its  material  aspects,  be- 
comes typical  of  the  higher,  spiritual  world.  As  the 
tabernacle  was  fashioned  after  the  heavenly  temple,  so 
the  lower  world  after  the  higher.  Not  simply  and 
arbitrarily  illustrative  is  the  world,  therefore;  but,  to 
the  deep  and  right-seeing  eye,  typical,  and,  therefore, 
illustrative.  It  is,  so  to  speak,  God's  first  great  book 
for  men,  containing  the  foundations  for  all  other 
revelations,  and  without  which  they  could  not  have 
been — the  "  Dark  Mirror"  {Moder?t  Painters^  pt.  9,  ch. 
i.,  in  vol.  v.),  in  which  man  must  catch  his  first  faint 
glimpses   of  God   and   heaven.     ''Tongues  in  trees, 


256    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

books  in  the  running  brooks,  sermons  in  stones,"  is  no 
longer  the  merest  fancy  of  the  poet,  but  the  statement 
of  veritable  fact.  Here  is  a  power  akin  to  concrete 
presentation  of  the  truth,  and  here  is  furnished  the 
clew  to  the  mystery  and  force  of  figurative  language. 
God  has  written  all  higher  truth  in  some  lower  form, 
which  brings  it  within  our  reach.  A  figure,  used  in 
illustrating,  has  power  because  it  presents  the  very 
truth  illustrated,  as  God  has  given  it  somewhere  in 
simple  and  concrete  shape  or  by  way  of  helpful 
analogy. 

This  principle  is  of  value,  not  because  of  Ruskin, 
but  because  of  God,  of  whose  method  Ruskin  has 
The  Bible  Point    simply  been  the  interpreter;  for  we  hold 

ofView.  this  to  be  the  Biblical  way  of  viewing 
things.  The  Bible  makes  everything  typical.  The 
soul  in  all  its  faculties  and  life;  the  family  in  all  its 
relations  and  experiences;  the  nation  in  all  its  consti- 
tution and  history;  the  Church  in  all  its  ordinances 
and  triumphs;  the  earth  and  the  material  universe  in 
all  their  breadth  of  fact  and  form,  of  change  and 
growth — the  Bible  brings  before  us,  to  teach  us  of  God 
and  heaven,  and  the  higher  things;  giving  us  in  this 
wise  our  first  glimpses  of  the  spiritual  realities  and 
glories.  One  can  scarcely  conceive  of  anything  that 
is  not  so  used  in  the  Bible.  It  is  one  of  the  secrets 
of  the  wonderful  energy  and  perpetual  freshness  of 
style  in  which  it  surpasses  all  other  and  merely 
human  books,  and  it  stands  out  clearly  as  an  element 
to  be  made  available  in  the  pulpit. 

This  Bible  method  is  at  heaven-wide  remove  from 
very  much  of  our  most  pretentious  human  work.  We 
deal  too  freely  in  far-fetched  and  much-elaborated 
figures  that  we  make  for  ourselves,   and  with  which 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  257 

manufactured  stock  we  vainly  think  to  illustrate  in  an 
arbitrary  way  what  God  has  given  us  to  utter.  Such 
work  is  like  all  work  purely  of  man,  and  after  his 
pattern — forceless  and  lifeless,  and  without  any  real 
sense  or  significance.  What  this  age  preeminently 
wants  is  the  seeing  eye,  the  quick-discerning  mind; 
and  then,  turning  this  down  into  the  soul,  or  to  the 
household  life,  or  out  upon  the  world,  God  will  make 
revelations  of  himself  to  us,  with  which  we  may  enforce 
his  higher  truths;  and  he  will  make  them  everywhere, 
in  the  flying  leaf,  the  vanishing  vapor,  and  the  sweep- 
ing dust;  in  the  falling  sparrow,  the  short-lived  moth, 
and  the  blooming  and  fading  flower;  in  the  yearning 
of  a  father  over  his  wandering  son,  the  watching  of  a 
mother  over  her  helpless  babe,  and  the  heavenliness 
of  home.  So  seeing,  we  shall  no  longer  bear  man's 
illustrations,  but  God's;  and  men  will  unconsciously 
recognize  in  them  something  of  God's  power. 

Taking  art  and  science  by  the  hand,  as  aids  and 
guides  in  this  their  sphere,  religion  must  make  the 
world,  with  all  in  it,  tributary  to  the  pulpit,  and  make 
full  use  of  it,  until  the  message  of  wrath  and  love  is 
written,  as  the  Bible  would  write  it,  on  everything 
that  meets  man's  eye,  appeals  to  his  reason,  dwells  in 
his  memory,  fastens  to  his  hopes,  moves  his  heart,  and 
links  itself  with  his  life.  Such  preaching  will  have 
power  with  man.  In  the  end,  the  distilling  dew  shall, 
from  morn  to  morn,  speak  to  him  of  the  silence,  the 
energy,  the  quickening,  invigorating  contact,  and  the 
wide-reaching  influence  of  God's  proclaimed  message; 
the  flaming  course  of  the  morning  sun,  as  it  hastens  to 
its  meridian  splendor,  shall  show  him  daily  the  **  path 
of  the  just"  drawn  across  the  skies,  in  its  beginnings 
out  of  darkness,  in  its  light  dispelling  the  darkness 


258    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

and  calling  forth  the  life  of  the  world,  in  its  constant 
progress,  and  in  its  reaching  out  toward  perfection; 
and  the  fading  leaf,  sweeping  across  the  sky,  while  it 
speaks  to  him  of  his  own  withering  life,  shall  tell  him 
also  of  the  accumulated  work  and  imperishable  monu- 
ment, in  the  tall  monarch  of  the  forest  standing  out 
against  the  sky,  left  behind  to  bless  the  coming 
generations  with  its  shade  and  protection. 

Another  element  of  power  and  effectiveness  is  to  be 
found   in   the   presentation   of  the  specific  truths  of 

(3)  Presentation  ^^^'^  ^°^^-      ^^  ^^^^  ^^^  """^^  ^"  ^^^^^ 
of  days  in   generalities.       It   is  all  wrong. 

Specific  Truth,  g^,]^  truths,  from  their  very  nature,  can 
possess  comparatively  little  interest.  And  they  are 
few  in  number;  the  man  who  deals  in  them  must  soon 
either  exhaust  or  repeat  himself.  Moreover,  it  is  not 
the  Bible  way;  for  in  it  everything  is  specific.  The 
one  who  holds  fast  by  the  precise  truth  of  each  text  of 
Scripture  will  always  present  what  is  fresh  and  new, 
because,  unlike  general  truths,  specific  truths  are 
infinite  in  number  and  variety. 

Over  each   text   a  vital   question   is.   What    is  the 

exact  thing  that  God  would  teach  in  this  message  ? 

What  is  the     The  man  who  always  asks  it,  and  always 

Exact  Point  ?  presents  what  he  ascertains  as  its  answer, 
will  not  present  the  same  subject  in  connection  with 
all  kindred  texts,  and  will  preach  neither  abstract 
theology  nor  philosophy,  but  God's  Word,  which  is 
better  than  either  or  both. 

Here,  by  way  of  illustration,  are  two  texts  : 

Col.  i.  17.     "By  him  all  things  consist." 

Jer.  X.  23.  "  O  Lord,  I  know  that  the  way  of  man  is  not  in  hinj-. 
self  ;  it  is  not  in  the  man  that  walketh  to  direct  his  steps." 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  259 

We  have  heard  men  preach  on  the  same  general  doc- 
trine of  providence  from  both  of  them.  It  was  not 
preaching  God's  Word.  The  first  of  the  texts  has 
nothing  to  say  of  providence  in  general;  it  only 
speaks  of  one  element  in  the  doctrine  of  providence 
— preservation^  and  is  still  more  specific  in  affirming 
this  not  of  God  absolute,  but  of  Jesus  Christ.  '*By 
Christ  2\\  things  are  continued  in  being."  The  other 
text  is  still  more  specific,  but  in  another  direction. 
The  emphatic  words — at  least  in  significance — are, 
*'in  man,"  '' in  himself";  and  the  theme  from  it,  in 
its  relations  to  providence,  would  be  the  prophet's 
thorough  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  a  special 
providence  as  demonstrated  to  him  by  the  nature  of 
maft. 

Again,  here  are  three  texts  : 

Ps.  Ixii.  II.  "  God  hath  spoken  once  ;  twice  have  I  heard  this  ; 
that  power  belongeth  unto  God." 

Ps.  cxi.  6.  "  He  hath  showed  his  people  the  power  of  his  works, 
that  he  may  give  them  the  heritage  of  the  heathen." 

Jer.  V.  22.  "Fear  ye  not  me?  saith  the  Lord;  will  ye  not 
tremble  at  my  presence,  which  have  placed  the  sand  for  the  bound 
of  the  sea  by  a  perpetual  decree,  that  it  can  not  pass  it ;  and  tho 
the  waves  thereof  toss  themselves,  yet  can  they  not  prevail  ;  tho 
they  roar,  yet  can  they  not  pass  over  it  ?  " 

One  might  preach  on  the  power  of  God  from  each  of 
them,  but  that  would  by  no  means  bring  out  their 
truth.  Taking  them  only  in  their  applications  to  the 
present,  the y^rj/ points  rather  to  the  abundant  and  clear 
evidence  that  power  is  God's  prerogative;  the  second 
may  turn  our  attention  to  the  wonderful  manner  in 
which,  by  the  progress  of  science  and  art  God  is 
unfolding  the    powers   of    nature    to    the    Christian 


26o     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

nations,  and  making  way  for  the  possession  and  con- 
version of  the  world;  while  the  third  speaks  not 
specifically  of  the  power  of  God,  nor  of  the  power  of 
God  to  control,  nor  of  the  power  of  God  to  control 
the  mightiest  things,  nor  of  the  power  of  God  to  con- 
trol the  mightiest  things  by  the  most  insignificant 
means,  but  of  the  power  of  God  to  control  the 
mightiest  forces  by  the  most  insignificant  means,  as  a 
reason  why  the  sinner  should  fear  him — or,  in  more 
rhetorical  form,  the  omnipotence  of  the  most  insignifi- 
cant things  in  God's  hands  as  a  reason  for  the  sinner's 
fearing  him.  The  three  run  in  wholly  different  lines 
of  thought;  one  takes  us  out  through  the  universe,  and 
bids  us  listen  for  the  voices  of  God's  power  every- 
where, from  man's  soul  to  the  sweep  of  the  remotest 
star;  another  takes  us  along  the  experience  of  Chris- 
tendom, and  shows  us  how  the  forces  of  nature,  in 
wind,  steam,  magnetism,  electricity,  in  all  their  appli- 
cations to  the  arts,  to  trade  and  intercourse,  are  being 
revealed  to  the  Christian  nations,  and  being  used  to 
bring  the  heathen  to  their  very  door  for  a  possession 
for  the  Church  and  Christ;  and  the  third  takes  us 
to  the  storm-lashed  shore  of  the  never-resting  sea,  and 
to  where  the  minute  and  mysterious  forces  of  God's 
vast  world  are  working  out  in  silence  the  behests  of 
his  omnipotence — and  bids  us  sinners  tremble  as  we 
see  how  God  can  hold  for  ages  those  furious  and  seem- 
ingly resistless  waves  by  that  shifting  sand,  while  the 
adamantine  rocks  wear  away  and  disappear — how  he 
can  grind  up  the  mountains  by  the  turn  of  atoms,  bind 
the  proudest  with  the  web  of  a  spider,  take  his  life 
with  a  particle  of  dust  or  air,  or  crush  him  by  the  turn- 
ing of  a  falling  leaf. 

While  it   is  not  the   purpose  to  recommend   some 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  261 

superficial  forms  of  expository  preaching,  as  suited  to 
this  age  of  cheap  commentaries,  yet  specific  truth 
we  must  have,  as  an  element  of  power  Fresh  Exposi- 
in  the  pulpit,  even  tho  it  carry  us  tory  Preaching, 
all  the  way  back  to  simple  exposition,  for  that  is 
better  than  generalities,  however  glittering,  and  as 
much  better  as  God's  Word  is  better  than  man's 
abstractions.  We  must  learn  to  come  to  a  text,  not  to 
see  whether  it  may  be  warped  to  suit  our  purposes,  but 
to  ascertain  what  God  says  in  it,  and  then  to  present 
and  enforce  that  from  the  pulpit. 

Such,  in  hasty  sketch,  are  these  simple  Biblical 
principles  that  have  so  much  to  do  with  the  effective- 
ness of  preaching,  and  that  the  preacher  must  make 
use  of  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  times.  The  pulpit 
must  hold  up  the  practical  truth  of  God  in  concrete 
shape,  illustrated  in  God's  way,  and  specific  as  in  God's 
Word.  The  theoretical,  the  abstract,  the  indefinite, 
the  general,  have  no  living  energy.  The  practical, 
the  concrete,  the  illustrative,  the  specific,  alone  are 
always  new  and  fresh  and  forceful,  and  so  fitted  to  take 
living  hold  on  human  souls. 

As  a  passing  glance  is  turned  to  those  who  from  the 
pulpit  hold  and  control  men,  are  found  to  be  clearly 
possessed,  in  large  measure,   of  at  least  2.  Principles 
some  of   these    elements,  and    to   wield     Illustrated, 
influence  according  to  the  completeness  of  their  fur- 
nishing in  this  respect. 

Two  men  stand  out  prominently  as  the  popular  men 
of  the  past  generation  in  the  pulpit,  with  reputation 
world-wide — Charles    Haddon    Spurgeon    Beecherand 
and  Henry  Ward  Beecher.     It  was  long      Spurgeon. 
the  custom  to  call  in  question  the  power  of  these  men, 
but  the  day  passed  when  one  could  exclaim,   ''clap- 


262     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

trap,"  with  a  sneer,  and  pass  them  by.  The  fact  of 
their  substantial  and  permanent  success  met  men  face  to 
face.  **  Clap-trap  "  may  attract  the  crowd  for  a  twelve- 
month, but  it  has  no  power  to  hold  it  through  the  years. 
It  is  wiser  to  acknowledge  the  facts,  and,  while  guard- 
ing against  error,  seek  to  make  the  most  of  that  power, 
whatever  it  may  be,  by  which  they  won  their  success. 

Spurgeon  and  Beecher  stand  before  the  world  as  the 
most  successful  popular  pulpit  orators  of  the  past 
generation.  Wherein  lay  their  power  ?  Holding  fast 
the  distinction  of  matter  and  form,  we  should  say 
that,  in  the  particulars  we  have  enumerated,  Spur- 
geon's  success  was  due  more  to  the  matter,  Beecher's 
more  to  the  form;  tho  each  possessed,  in  some 
degree,  all  the  elements  both  in  matter  and  form. 
Taking  Coleridge's  antithesis  between  *' science" 
and  "poetry,"  Mr.  Beecher's  cast  of  mind  was  rather 
poetic  than  scientific.  This  accounted  for  some  of  his 
peculiarities.  If  he  had  any  system  of  theology,  it  was 
one  peculiar  to  himself;  so  that,  taking  him  in  connec- 
tion with  his  family,  the  division  of  theologians  into 
*'the  orthodox,  the  heterodox,  and  the  Beecher 
family,"  is  more  than  a  witticism.  As  a  result  of  this 
laxness  and  want  of  system,  he  was  often  to  be  found 
sneering  at  ''orthodoxy"  and  ''sound  theology,"  and 
disparaging  some  of  the  truths  most  precious  to  the 
Church  of  God — a  feature  in  his  preaching  that  was 
deeply  deplored  by  some  of  his  best  friends. 

Spurgeon  dwelt  more  than  Beecher  upon  the  doc- 
trine of  the  cross,  in  its  relations  to  the  conversion  of 
men  and  to  the  development  of  Christian  activity. 
The  number  of  conversions  under  his  ministry  was 
therefore  greater,  and  the  distinctively  Christian 
activity   of   his   church    more   noteworthy. 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  263 

Beecher  dwelt  more  than  Spurgeon  upon  the  duties 
of  the  Christian  believer  and  worker  in  the  spheres  of 
social  and  civil  duty — applying  the  truth  more  to  the 
every-day  home-wants  of  men;  seeking  to  guide  them 
in  the  world  as  it  is,  and  so  aiming  to  make  them 
better  fathers,  relatives,  and  friends,  better  business 
men  and  citizens,  by  laying  down  rules  for  their 
guidance.  Perhaps  no  man  of  his  day  attempted  to 
apply  God's  Word  to  these  practical  connections  of 
the  Christian  with  the  world,  especially  in  the  national 
sphere,  as  did  Beecher;  often  radically  and  wrongly,  to 
be  sure,  in  consequence  of  attempting  to  go  beyond 
the  sphere  of  vital  gospel  principles  to  which,  as  has 
been  seen,  Christ  and  his  Apostles  confined  them- 
selves; but  yet,  men  were  constrained  to  concede, 
with  an  aim  to  faithfulness,  and,  on  the  whole,  present- 
ing vital  truth  that  took  hold  of  human  hearts  and 
made  him  a  molder  of  public  sentiment  and  a  leader 
among  men,  and  aroused  many  among  the  clergy  to  a 
renewed  sense  of  neglected  or  forgotten  duty  in  this 
direction. 

Both  addressed  their  messages  to  the  practical  ideas 
in  man;  but  Spurgeon  the  more  powerfully,  speaking 
chiefly  to  duty  and  happiness,  and  appealing  to  the 
latter  from  its  darker  side  with  a  tremendous  and 
awful  intensity  of  earnestness  that  has  hardly  been 
surpassed  since  Jesus  of  Nazareth  uttered  his  procla- 
mations of  wo  in  Galilee  and  Judea;  while  Beecher 
addressed  more  the  idea  of  virtue  or  manliness,  as  if 
seeking  to  press  home  dishonesty,  cowardice,  and 
meanness,  as  the  cardinal  sins. 

In  respect  to  form,  both  made  use  of  all  the  elements 
of  power  enumerated.  Both  delighted  to  present  truth 
in  the  concrete.     Both  held  practically  to  the  theory 


264    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

that  the  world  is  typical,  and  so  both  abounded  in  apt 
illustration.  Beecher,  born  poet,  yet  affectionately 
acknowledged,  in  his  Star  Papers^  his  indebtedness  to 
John  Ruskin  for  the  **  blessings  of  sight  "  : 

"  We  are  more  indebted  to  him  for  the  blessings  of  sight  than  to  all 
other  men.  We  were,  in  respect  to  nature,  o^  the  number  of  those 
who,  having  eyes  saw  not,  and  ears,  heard  not.  He  taught  us  what 
to  see  and  how  to  see." 

Spurgeon,  in  one  of  his  early  sermons,  gave  substan- 
tial expression  of  his  adherence  to  the  same  theory, 
tho  coming  by  it  in  a  different  way.  The  world  in 
all  its  breadth  was  thus  tributary  to  both,  and  was 
made  to  speak  most  eloquently  for  God  through  them. 
Belcher  saw  it  the  more  poetically;  Spurgeon  the 
more  practically. 

Both  presented  specific  truth,  and  were,  therefore, 
always  fresh  and  novel.  Of  the  two,  Beecher  was 
rather  the  man  of  genius  and  artistic  excellence,  and 
the  favorite  on  the  platform  ;  Spurgeon  the  represent- 
ative of  the  earnest  and  evangelical  type  of  piety,  the 
model  preacher  of  the  Gospel,  and  the  man  of  larger 
Christian  influence  with  the  masses  and  with  evangeli- 
cal Christendom.  Beecher  drew  large  audiences  by 
the  exhibitions  of  his  genius  and  the  fascination  of  his 
eloquence,  who  found  much  to  admire  in  the  man  and 
in  his  utterances.  Spurgeon  gathered  a  vast  and  per- 
manent congregation,  in  the  literary  and  commercial 
metropolis  of  the  English  world,  by  the  simple  elo- 
quence of  the  message  of  salvation  and  his  personal 
magnetism,  who  consecrated  themselves  to  organized 
service  for  Christ  for  the  saving  of  the  world.  It 
should  be  remarked,  also,  that  Spurgeon  added  to  his 
qualities  as  a  preacher  perhaps  the  most  extraordinary 


THE   PREACHING    FOR   THESE   TIMES.  265 

administrative  power  possessed  by  any  preacher  of  the 
century;  by  virtue  of  which  he  was  enabled  to  embody 
his  gospel  ideas  in  various  forms  of  churchly  activity 
and  various  educational  and  missionary  institutions, 
that  have  already  sent  out  many  hundreds  of  ministers 
and  Christian  workers,  and  exerted  a  vast  influence 
upon  all  Protestant  Christendom,  and  that  promise  to 
continue  permanently  their  ever-widening  influence 
for  the  cause  of  Christ  and  his  Gospel. 

The  preaching  of  the  two,  in  contrasts  and  conse- 
quences, strongly  emphasizes  the  larger  and  more 
permanent  Christian  results  of  that  preaching,  with 
no  ''uncertain  sound,"  of  Christianity  as  the  saving 
power,  with  its  two-fold  message  of  law  and  Gospel, 
that  has  been  already  dwelt  upon  as  the  better 
way. 

As  lessons  are  often  better  learned  by  example  than 
by  precept,  these  two  men  are  presented,  as  perhaps 
illustrating  better  than  any  other  men  of  How  far 
recent  times,  the  elements  in  matter  Models, 
and  manner  that  are  fitted  to  reach  the  men  of  the 
present  day.  While  insisting  that  no  man  is  to  be 
servilely  copied,  yet  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  duty 
to  lay  hold  of  and  turn  to  service  every  element  of 
power  in  every  man.  It  is  granted  and  even  affirmed, 
that  there  are  objectionable  elements  and  eccen- 
tricities in  their  style — especially  in  Mr.  Beecher's 
and  in  Mr.  Spurgeon's  earlier  efforts — that  are  to 
be  avoided,  at  least  by  other  men,  and  through  mad 
imitation  of  which  this  country  and  Great  Britain  were 
at  one  time  visited  with  an  infliction  of  clergymen 
of  the  ''Rev.  Shallow  Splurge"  type.  But  tho  these 
peculiarities  lessened  their  influence,  they  abated 
not   one  whit   from    the  value   of  the   princely  gifts 


266     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

bestowed  upon  them  by  the  Master.  We  have  some- 
times been  constrained  to  think  that,  if  Mr.  Beecher 
had  preached  the  central  doctrine  of  the  cross  with  the 
fulness  and  the  '*  blood  earnestness"  of  Spurgeon,  he 
would  have  been  every  way  the  mightiest  man  of  the 
modern  popular  pulpit. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  comparative  estimate  of 
Beecher  and  Spurgeon,  there  can  be  no  question  but 
that  all  who  are  called  to  stand  in  the  pulpit  should 
seek  to  make  of  service  these  powers  of  the  two  men, 
so  far  as  available.  Preaching,  so  conformed  to  what 
is  right  in  high  example,  as  well  as  to  the  demands  of 
correct  theory,  meeting  the  actual  needs  of  men  in  all 
the  relations  of  life,  will  be  a  master-power  in  the  world. 
It  will  have  the  grandest  of  beauty,  and  yet  not  be  a 
gospel  of  esthetics  ;  it  will  possess  perpetual  novelty, 
and  yet  not  be  a  gospel  of  *'  clap-trap  and  sensation  "  ; 
it  will  always  be  sublimely  practical,  but  never  a  gos- 
pel of  petty  scolding,  nor  of  minor  morals.  Such 
preaching  will  meet  all  the  just  demands  of  the  three 
tendencies  noted,  at  the  beginning  of  this  discussion, 
as  characterizing  the  times  in  which  we  live. 


(Ill)  In  the  Spirit  of  Preaching. 

Passing  from  matter  and  manner  to  spirit,  it  is  clear 
that,  in  accordance  with  the  general  answer  to  the 
question  proposed  at  the  outset,  the  spirit  of  the  pulpit 
must  be  conformed  to  the  correct  working-theory,  so 
as  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  times.  It  is  the  spirit  of 
the  preacher  that  transforms  and  glorifies  both  matter 
and  manner.  He  must  preach  the  Gospel  with  a  living 
sense  of  his  grand  mission  to  save  souls. 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  267 

It  is  only  necessary  here  barely  to  indicate  what  needs 
to  be  brought  out  in  this  connection.  Dr.  Francis 
Wayland,  in  his  work  on  the  Christian  calling  and 
Ministry^  has  clearly  shown  that  ministry  Consecration, 
to  be,  not  a  profession,  and  not  on  a  level  with  the 
professions,  but  most  widely  separated  from  them  in 
being  a  calling.  A  call  to  this  great  and  solemn  work, 
direct  from  the  living  God,  is,  as  already  insisted,  the 
first  thing  requisite — a  call  which  shall  make  a  man 
cry  out  with  Paul,  under  a  sense  of  his  responsibility, 
**  Wo  is  unto  me,  if  I  preach  not  the  Gospel."  * 

Then  the  vocation  of  the  minister  demands  intense 
sympathy  with  Christ  in  the  work  of  saving  the  world. 
It  calls  for  an  overmastering  enthusiasm  in  the  work 
of  soul-winning.  It  demands  an  absolute  consecration 
to  that  work,  and  an  entire  devotion  to  it.  This  can 
come  only  through  the  knowledge  of  God's  Word,  in 
which  Christ's  will  is  expressed,  and  through  the  rich 
indwelling  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  Moreover,  there 
must  be  that  complete  knowledge  of  men,  and  sympa- 
thy with  them,  that  can  come  only  from  intimate  and 
constant  contact  with  them,  both  as  a  man  and  a 
pastor. 

Add  to  all,  large  expectation  of  results.  **  Preach 
the  Word,  and  leave  the  results  to  God  ";  so  we  are 
wont  to  say.  We  hold  this  form  of  state-  Expectation  of 
ment,  as  it  is  sometimes  meant,  to  be  Results, 
neither  Scriptural  nor  true.  Preach  the  Word,  and 
expect  results  from  God,  is  truth  and  Scripture.  It 
recognizes  faith  as  a  substantial  element  of  power. 
Men  must  feel  that  their  work  is  one  of  life  and  death, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  a  work  in  which  God  and  Christ 
are  more  interested  than  they  can  be;  and  then,  with 
correct  theory,  working  in  the  right  way  and  in  the 

*  I  Cor.  ix.  16. 


268     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

proper  spirit,  they  may  expect  that  perishing  men  will 
assuredly  be  reached,  and,  by  God's  grace,  saved. 

Would  that  the  whole  truth  concerning  the  mission 
of  the  ministry  might  be  written  on  the  heart  of  every 
messenger  of  God  with  a  pen  of  fire,  and  in  perpetu- 
ally burning  words;  for  without  it  thus  fixed  in  the 
soul,  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  success  in  the 
highest  and  truest  sense.  The  little  work  of  Bonar, 
entitled  Words  to  the  Winners  of  Souls,  already  re- 
ferred to,  presents  the  idea  with  great  force.  True 
it  is  that  a  certain  class  of  men  cry  out  against  what 
they  are  pleased  to  denominate  its  "  legal  spirit,"  and 
declaim  against  it  as  setting  up  an  unscriptural 
standard  by  which  to  try  the  work  of  the  ministry;  but 
we  believe  that  earnest  and  sincere  men  can  not  but 
plead  guilty  to  every  charge  it  brings  against  us  of 
this  day.  All  such  men  feel  intensely  that  we  need  a 
new  life  in  the  ministry.  And  such  men  feel,  too,  that 
without  such  a  new  life,  without  such  men,  there  is  no 
salvation  for  us  ! 

If  the  consecrated  spirit  shall  thus  crown  the  Scrip- 
tural and  divine  matter  and  the  intelligent  and  wise 
manner,  the  divine  blessing  and  resultant  large  suc- 
cess may  be  confidently  expected. 

SECTION  THIRD. 

The  Preaching  for  Immediately  Evangelizing  the  World. 

The  preaching  of  the  Gospel  has  been  considered  in 
its  general  relations  to  the  times  in  which  we  live.  It 
is  vastly  more  important  that  it  be  considered  in  its 
special  relations  to  the  present  meaning  of  the  Great 
Commission,  in  the  light  of  God's  Word  and  of  God's 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  269 

providences.  That  calls  for  a  preaching  that  shall 
keep  in  view  the  obligation  of  the  ministry,  and  of  the 
Church,  to  give  the  Gospel  to  all  mankind  without 
delay. 

The  preaching  that  is  to  have  this  in  view  must 
manifestly  be  preaching  for  awakening  and  revival — 
not  for  emotional  or  hysterical  revival,  nor  even  for 
sporadic  and  local  revival  of  the  genuine  sort;  but  for 
a  great  awakening,  such  as  the  Church  has  never 
hitherto  known,  that  shall  reach  and  rouse  and  set  to 
work  the  Church  of  Christendom  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  this  one  object. 

From  this  point  of  view,  the  supreme  thing  to  be 
emphasized  in  the  preaching  of  the  day,  if  it  is  to  meet 
the  present  needs,  fulfil  the  preacher's  commission, 
and  be  effective,  is  that  it  must  be  essentially  and 
directly  evangelistic,  and  with  constant  reference  to 
the  present  status  of  that  commission.  The  Gospel 
must  be  preached  as  a  regenerating  and  saving  power, 
of  present  efficacy  for  the  individual  sinner  and  for  all 
mankind.  Now,  if  ever,  preaching  should  intelligently 
and  constantly  aim  at  the  immediate  conversion  of 
sinners  and  of  the  world.  It  should  be  heartily  and 
intensely  Gospel-preaching,  in  this  awakening  and  sav- 
ing sense. 

Such  preaching  will  doubtless  rouse  opposition,  as 
it  always  has  in  the  past;  but  that  opposition  will  be 
God's  testimony  and  Satan's  testimony  to  the  neces- 
sity for  it.  It  will  not  excuse  the  preacher  from  faith- 
fully delivering  the  message  Christ  has  committed  to 
him.  The  "carnal  mind"  has  never  ceased  to  be  at 
''enmity  against  God,"  *  and  never  will  cease  to  be  so. 
It  will  never  listen  to  the  complete  presentation  of 
God's  truth  concerning  man's  sinful  and  lost  condi- 

*  Rom.  viii.  7. 


270      CHRIST  S   TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE   MINISTRY. 

tion,  without  reluctance  or  resentment,  varying  in  in- 
tensity and  virulence  according  to  circumstances.  A 
method  of  questioning  young  evangelists,  on  their  re- 
turn from  a  preaching  tour,  in  order  to  test  their  suc- 
cess— which  we  have  heard  attributed  to  John  Wesley 
— is  highly  suggestive  of  man's  condition  and  need,  as 
well  as  of  keen  discernment  of  human  nature.  It  was 
by  three  questions  and  their  answers  :  '*  Has  your 
preaching  resulted  in  the  conversion  of  any  sinner?" 
*'No."  "Has  it  resulted  in  the  conviction  of  any 
sinner?"  **  No."  **  Has  it  made  any  one  mad?" 
**  No."  **  Then  you  will  not  do  for  a  preacher  of  the 
Gospel." 

Such  opposition  will  doubtless  be  strongest  where 
the  pews  are  filled  with  the  rich  and  so-called  culti- 
The Wickedest  vated  classes;  and  it  will  be  thereby 
Sinners.  proved  of  greater  need  just  there,  if 
these  souls  are  not  to  be  lost.  The  preacher  needs  to 
remember  that  the  great  sinners  are  not  necessarily 
the  ragged  denizens  of  the  slums,  and  to  be  judged  by 
their  rags  and  squalor — as  so  many  in  these  days  seem 
to  think.  Righteousness  does  not  consist  in  external 
decency  and  good  clothes;  nor  sin  simply  in  poverty, 
filth,  and  wretchedness.  Paul,  by  inspiration,  de- 
clared himself  to  be  the  greatest  of  all  sinners  (i  Tim. 
i.  15,  16),  and  affirmed  that  God  had,  for  this  very 
reason,  saved  him  and  set  him  up  as  an  example  for  all 
sinners  in  all  ages,  of  the  power  of  divine  grace.  The 
**  wickedest  man,"  as  the  gospel  standards  measure 
wickedness,  is  rather  the  man  of  great  brain  and  great 
enlightenment  and  great  gospel  opportunities  and 
privileges,  who,  notwithstanding  all  these,  remains  an 
unbeliever  and  rebel  against  God,  and  a  hater  and 
rejecter  of    Christ's    claims   and    commands  and  en- 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  27 1 

treaties;  and  he  is  more  likely  to  be  found  in  the 
**  best  pew  "  in  the  fashionable  church  than  in  the 
slums  or  the  prison,  unless,  as  is  sometimes  the  case, 
he  has  passed  from  the  first  to  the  last. 

That  his  plain  message  from  God  might  have  stirred 
up  opposition  will  furnish  no  adequate  excuse  at  the 
judgment  bar  for  the  preacher  who  has    „,    watch- 
for  this  reason  failed  to  deliver  it.     Per-  man's  Responsi- 
ishing  souls  need  the  message,  and  the         ^ility. 
compassionate    Savior,    knowing    this,    commissioned 
the  preacher  to  deliver  it,   that  lost  souls   might  be 
saved.     Ezekiel's  judgment  upon  the  watchman  is  the 
divine  judgment  upon  the  unfaithful  watchmen  on  the 
walls  of  Zion  to-day  : 

"  But  if  the  watchman  see  the  sword  coming  and  blow  not  the 
trumpet  and  the  people  be  not  warned  ;  if  the  sword  come  and  take 
any  person  from  among  them,  he  is  taken  away  in  his  iniquity  ;  but 
his  blood  will  I  require  at  the  watchman's  hand."* 

I.    Stated  Preaching   for   Immediate  Salvation, 
God's  Method. 

Preaching  the  Gospel  as  a  saving  and  regenerating 
power,  by  the  stated  ministry,  for  the  immediate  saving 
of  men,  is,  we  take  it,  the  true  and  normal  x^e  Normal 
method,  and  the  only  healthful  method.  Method, 
of  progress  in  the  work  of  the  Church  for  the  lost 
world.  Such  preaching  is  the  only  provision  for  lay- 
ing, in  the  minds  of  the  mass  of  men,  the  deep,  rational, 
and  permanent  foundation  for  the  proper  results  of 
the  Gospel  in  conscience  and  character. 

*  Ezekiel  xxxiii.  6. 


272     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

(I)  Limitations  of  Special  Revivalism. 

The  lack  of  such  preaching  has  doubtless  made  the 
necessity  for  the  work  of  the  special  revivalist.  Such 
revival  work  is  necessarily  brief,  and  its  limitations  of 
time  are  such  that  it  can  not  be  other  than  superficial. 
Little  of  permanent  value  can  be  expected  of  it,  unless 
there  has  been  a  previous  thorough  preparation  in  the 
preaching  of  the  stated  minister;  and  it  is  to  be  noted 
that  ministers  who  depend  upon  such  special  work  of 
revivalists  are  not  commonly  of  the  kind  who  lay  such 
solid  foundations  in  their  own  preaching. 

When  this  rational  foundation  for  religion  is  lacking, 
the  temptation  and  tendency  to  introduce  powerful 
stimulants  and  excitements,  to  produce  the  action  that 
should  be  secured  in  a  reasonable  way,  are  almost 
overwhelming.  Of  course  the  masses  of  so-called  con- 
verts, in  such  circumstances,  can  only  be  expected  to 
illustrate  the  character  and  faith  of  the  **  stony-ground 
hearers,"  of  the  parable  of  the  sower. 

In  very  many  cases,  all  rational  basis  for  religion  is 
left  out;  and  the  mere  machinery  is  all  that  is  left  to 
accomplish  the  work  of  so-called  conversion.  Instead 
of  strong  presentation  of  truth,  there  is  the  funny 
story  and  the  clap-trap  method,  the  boy-preacher  and 
the  lay-evangelist,  the  praying-band  and  the  gospel 
singer,  to  take  the  place  of  the  exposition  and  enforce- 
ment of  the  Word  of  God  by  the  preacher  of  the  Gospel. 
We  have  known  hundreds  of  so-called  conversions,  the 
result  of  such  methods,  to  disappear  again  in  the  mass 
of  worldliness,  without  adding  anything  to  the  mem- 
bership of  the  Church.  When  Dr.  Asahel  Nettleton 
began  his  preaching,  in  eastern  Connecticut,  he  found 
there,  in  the  dreadful  spiritual  barrenness  that  made 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  273 

his  work  hopeless,  the  results  of  the  ill-advised 
methods  of  the  evangelist  Davenport,  of  the  previous 
century.  One  who  had  occasion  to  follow  the  track 
of  even  the  sainted  John  Summerfield  in  such  hasty 
evangelistic  work,  found  that  the  region  over  which 
he  had  passed  had  come  to  be  designated  the  "burnt 
region"  ! 

Now,  it  is  true  that  there  are  revivals  and  revivals; 
that  there  are  revivalists  and  revivalists.  To  the 
right  kind  of  both  the  Church  owes  a  legitimate 
vast  debt,  and  the  testimony  to  their  Revivalism, 
value  has  come  from  the  best  of  her  preachers.  Dr. 
Lyman  Beecher,  in  one  of  his  last  public  addresses, 
said  :  **I  feel  that,  if  I  had  a  thousand  lives  to  live, 
they  should  all  be  devoted  to  the  ministry  and  to 
revivals."  Dr.  Porter  of  Farmington,  Conn.,  once 
said  :  **  Those  who  remain  of  Dr.  Nettleton's  revival 
converts  are  the  chief  strength  of  our  church."  His 
son.  President  Porter  of  Yale  College,  said  :  **I  deem 
it  all-important  that  ministers  should  be  revival  men." 
Bishop  Mcllvaine  once  said:  **  Whatever  I  possess 
of  religion  came  in  a  revival."  President  Heman 
Humphrey  of  Amherst  College  said  :  **  After  all  that 
our  eyes  have  seen  and  our  ears  have  heard,  I  marvel 
that  any  should  look  with  suspicion  on  revivals. 
Rather  let  us  hail  them  in  this  midnight  of  tribulation 
as  the  harbinger  of  the  *  light  of  seven  days  *  "  J  * 

The  Church  owes  an  immense  debt  to  revivalists 
of  the  better  kind.  But  even  tho  they  be  of  that 
class,  their  work  is,  so  far  as  it  is  necessary,  a  proof  of 
the  failure  of  the  regular  ministry  to  reach,  in  a  nor- 
mal way,  the  results  contemplated  by  the  Head  of  the 

*  See  Revivals :  How  and  When,  By  Rev.  W.  W.  Newell, 
D.  D.,  pp.  21-23. 


274       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

Church.  That  in  these  days  they  should  be  almost 
universally  resorted  to,  when  men  are  to  be  gathered 
into  the  Church,  is  proof  of  a  wide-reaching  defect  in 
the  present  methods.  It  must  be  noted,  however, 
that  the  testimonies  just  cited  are-not  mainly  to  pro- 
fessional revivalism  and  revivalists,  but  to  religious 
awakenings  in  connection  with  the  regular  ministra- 
tions of  the  pastor.  It  is  the  latter  kind  of  revivalist 
that  has  universal  commendation. 


(II)  Needed  Return  to  the  Normal  Method. 

In  a  return  to  such  revival  preaching  of  the  stated 
ministry  is  to  be  found  the  only  safety  for  the  Church. 
It  can  hardly  be  questioned  that  the  influence  which 
this  work  gives  to  him  who  engages  in  it  is  needed  to 
maintain  the  minister's  authority  and  influence  at  their 
best  with  his  people.  It  is  certainly  needed,  if  there 
is  to  be  the  proper,  rational,  and  intelligent  basis  for 
a  Christian  life  in  the  hearer,  when  he  becomes  a 
Christian. 

Moreover,  the  minister  and  the  Church  both  need  it 
in  order  to  be  prepared  to  take  proper  care  of  new  con- 
verts when  made.  The  one  process — that  of  bringing 
the  sinner  to  Christ — is  the  necessary  preparation  for 
the  other — that  of  training  him  in  the  service  of  Christ; 
and  the  one  is  the  necessary  presupposition  of  the 
other,  as  the  mother-love  is  for  the  proper  nurture  of 
the  child. 

It  can  not  be  reasonably  doubted  that  observation 
of  the  results  of  this  normal  and  Christian  method 
has  shown  it  to  be  the  true  method.  At  the  same 
time,  it  seems  to  be  almost  demonstrable  that  the 
present  state  of  things  is,  in  large  measure,  the  natural 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  275 

result  of  ministerial  failure  in  this  direction.  The 
converting  and  saving  doctrines  of  Christianity  are  the 
great  conscience-rousing  and  character-making  agen- 
cies. The  withdrawal  of  these  doctrines  from  promi- 
nence, in  preachers'  deliverances,  has  naturally  been 
followed  by  a  lack  of  intelligence  in  the  hearer  on  the 
subjects  of  conscience  and  character.  It  has  led  to  his 
practical  release  from  the  internal  and  moral  pressure 
that  holds  to  right  principle  and  right  conduct — of 
originating  and  manifesting  which  pressure  the  pul- 
pit has  always  been  the  main  agency.  It  has  led,  in 
greater  or  less  degree,  to  the  elimination  of  the  reli- 
gious, spiritual,  and  distinctively  Christian  element 
from  the  services  of  the  sanctuary,  so  that  the  Chris- 
tian side  of  the  environment  of  the  church-goers  has 
largely  dropped  out.  If,  as  has  been  estimated,  the 
worldly  side  of  that  environment  presses  upon  the 
business  man  ''with  a  force  some  twenty-five  times 
greater  than  it  did  before  the  age  of  steam,"  the  pres- 
sure must  necessarily  have  come  to  be  pretty  much  all 
one  way — and  that  away  from  God  and  Christ  and 
evangelical  religion.  Men  who  want  religious  and 
Christian  teaching  naturally  complain  that  they  get 
very  little  of  it  from  many  of  the  pulpits. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that,  in  this  condition  of  affairs, 
there  is  much  complaint  because  so  few  of  the  leaders 
among  men,  in  business  and  in  the  professions,  are 
in  the  churches  ?  The  substitution  of  mere  exhor- 
tation and  Sunday-school  talk  for  the  vigorous  doc- 
trinal and  practical  presentation  of  Bible  truth  fails  to 
satisfy,  nay,  disgusts,  men  of  intellectual  grasp  and 
moral  earnestness. 

Often  the  preacher  who  falls  into  this  vicious  method 
is  not  himself  aware  of  it.     A  well-known   preacher 


276     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

and  pastor,  who  had  been  somewhat  dazed  by  a  tem- 
porary outside  popularity,  once  said  to  the  writer; 

"  I  was  out  of  my  study  all  last  week,  and  did  not  get  home  from 
lecturing  abroad  until  late  Saturday  night.  So  I  went  into  the  pulpit 
on  Sabbath  morning,  took  as  my  text  a  familiar  passage  of  Scripture, 
and  extemporized  for  an  hour.  I  have  never  before  had  such  freedom 
and  satisfaction  in  my  pulpit- work  in  all  my  life." 

That  was  the  view  from  the  pulpit.  A  few  days 
later,  a  member  of  that  preacher's  congregation,  a  dis- 
tinguished lawyer,  said  of  that  morning  service  : 

"  Our  minister  is  running  hither  and  thither  all  the  week,  and  when 
the  Sabbath  comes  he  has  no  preparation  for  his  preaching.  He 
went  into  the  pulpit  last  Sabbath  morning,  after  such  a  week,  and 
sputtered  extemporaneous  exhortations  at  us  over  the  corners  of  the 
pulpit,  for  more  than  an  hour.     I  am  tired  of  it." 

That  was  the  view  from  the  pew! 

The  substitution  of  esthetics,  minor  morals,  and 
sensationalism  generally,  for  the  great  themes  that 
Sensationalism  should  be  supreme  in  the  pulpit,  fail  to 
a  Failure,  satisfy  intelligent,  strong  nien.  They  do 
not  find  anything  in  such  froth  and  foam  that  meets 
their  needs  or  cravings.  There  is  nothing  in  such 
preaching  to  induce  a  really  intelligent  man  to  go  to 
church.  If  such  a  hearer  is  inclined  to  sensationalism 
and  excitement,  he  can  get  it  in  more  approved  form 
at  the  theater.  If  he  has  literary  or  esthetic  inclina- 
tions, he  has  the  best  of  these  things  at  his  command 
outside  the  pulpit,  and  of  such  superior  character  that 
the  preacher  can  not  be  expected  to  compete  success- 
fully with  the  literati  and  the  artists.  And  of  what 
interest  to  him  are  the  ten  thousand  pettinesses,  if  he 
is  at  all  conscious  that  he  has  a  soul  and  is  on  his  way 
to  the  presence  of  him  who  is  to  judge  **  the  quick  and 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  277 

the  dead  "?      We  once  heard  a  man  of  national  reputa- 
tion, whose  pastor  was  such  a  preacher,  say  : 

"  I  go  to  church  because  my  family  want  me  to.  I  never  hear  any- 
thing the  minister  says.  He  never  says  anything.  I  let  it  all  go  in 
at  one  ear  and  out  at  the  other." 

Naturally,  the  old  feeling  that  the  Church  has  a  mes- 
sage of  overwhelming  importance  is  gradually  passing 
from  the  minds  of  men,  and  multitudes  are  turning 
their  attention  toward  other  sources  of  Sabbath  in- 
struction and  amusement.  Naturally,  too,  the  moral 
bottom  is  dropping  out  of  the  society,  the  business, 
the  politics,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  things  in  which 
these  men  have  control.  And  so,  largely  in  this  way, 
we  have  come  to  what  a  distinguished  Boston  clergy- 
man has  characterized  as  "  our  present  state  of  desper- 
ate need,"  extrication  from  which  calls  for  the  use  of 
every  possible  agency  of  the  Gospel. 

Hence,  the  growing  and  deepening  conviction  of 
many  of  those  who  best  understand  the  character  of  the 
times  that  there  is  needed  a  great  and  AGreatAwak- 
powerful  religious  awakening  and  quick-  ening  Needed, 
ening,  such  as  the  Church  has  not  known  for  a  genera- 
tion, or  even  for  a  century  and  more — an  awakening 
that  shall  begin  with  and  work  out  from  the  pastors 
and  the  churches. 

II.  Preaching  for  the  Immediate  Salvation 
OF  THE  World. 

The  supreme  question  of  the  hour  for  the  preacher 
is,  then  :  How  can  I,  the  ordained  preacher  and  leader 
of  the  Church,  so  preach  the  Gospel  as  to  do  my  part  in 
bringing  about  these  results,  in  the  saving  of  sinful  men 
just  around  me,  and  of  the  world  of  sinners  besides  ? 


278     Christ's  trUxMpet-call  to  the  ministry. 


(I)  Requirements  Made  of    the  Individual 
Preacher. 

The  first  necessity  is  that  each  individual  minister 
shall  answer  this  question  for  himself,  and,  having 
found  the  answer,  shall  proceed  to  do  his  individual 
duty  in  his  appointed  place. 

There  are  certain  general  requirements  (elsewhere 
emphasized),  to  begin  with.     He  must  take  in  fully  the 

General  Re-     situation.     He  must  understand  the  com- 

quirements.  mission  and  message  that  have  been  en- 
trusted to  him.  He  must  become  possessed  with  the 
unhesitating  conviction  that  divine  regeneration,  by 
the  power  of  the  Gospel,  is  the  only  thing  that  can 
bring  about  the  needed  change.  He  must  become 
deeply  and  solemnly  conscious  of  his  position  as  the 
appointed  mouthpiece  of  God  in  proclaiming  the  Gos- 
pel. He  must  firmly  and  irrevocably  determine  that 
he  will  do  his  duty  and  his  whole  duty,  as  required  by 
the  Master  who  has  sent  him.  Then  he  must  conse- 
crate himself  to  the  carrying  out  of  his  determination, 
in  absolute  and  unwavering  reliance  on  divine  grace  to 
give  the  word  and  work  success.  All  this  is  just  as 
necessary  for  the  minister  as  is  the  business  man's 
outlook  when  he  enters  upon  any  enterprise.  God  is 
a  God  of  order,  and  Christian  work  and  preaching  are 
rational  procedures. 

Having  secured  such  command  of  the  situation,  and 
such  divine  girding  for  the  work,  the  preacher  is  ready 
to  do  the  one  thing  he  is  just  now  called  upon  to  do  as 
a  preacher.  That  one  thing  is  to  direct  his  Gospel 
message,  immediately  and  persistently,  to  the  members 
of  his  congregation,  saints  and  sinners,   in  precisely 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  279 

the  doctrinal  aspect  and  form  required  to  meet  their 
sins  and  the  sins  of  the  age,  and  to  arouse  and  quicken 
conscience. 

This  assumes  that  all  revivals  begin  with  the  awak- 
ening of  the  church  members  and  extend  from  them 
to  the  sinners  beyond.  This  is  a  commonplace  with 
those  familiar  with  revival  work.  It  assumes  that 
the  preaching  should  be  intelligently  aimed  at  the  de- 
sired results,  and  that  the  preacher  is  warranted  to 
expect  that  such  preaching  will,  by  the  grace  of  God, 
be  followed  by  such  results.  None  but  a  hyper-Cal- 
vinist  has  any  ground  for  doubting  this.  It  assumes 
that  there  are  certain  great  doctrines,  or  forms  or 
aspects  of  doctrine,  that  the  Holy  Spirit  is  accustofned 
to  use  and  bless,  in  stemming  and  turning  back  the 
tide  of  sin,  and  in  saving  sinners.  This  may  not  be  so 
readily  admitted;  but  this  is  the  point  to  which  the 
special  attention  of  the  preacher  needs  to  be  directed. 

I.   A  Preparatory  Study  of  Principles. 

In  making  ready  for  this  kind  of  work,  now  so  im- 
peratively demanded,  the  preacher  needs,  therefore,  to 
study  the  principles  of  genuine  revivals  of  religion  in 
the  light  of  historical  and  inductive  observation,  in 
order  to  their  methodical  and  practical  application 
in  his  own  work. 

It  is  as  true  in  revivals  as  elsewhere  that  *'  history 
is   philosophy  teaching   by  example."     Their   history 
constitutes  an  object-lesson    of  peculiar   r^j^gg  -^^^^  ^f 
instructiveness.     There  have  been  three        General 
great  eras  of  general  revival  in  the  his-       Revival. 
tory  of  the  Americ-an  Church,  each  of  which  has  been 
characterized  by  certain  peculiar  features. 


28o     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

First.  There  has  been,  in  each  case,  a  providential 
preparation,  in  the  revival  of  faith  in  the  dogmatic  au- 
thority of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  as  the  Word  of  God — 
a  genuine  and  general  religious  revival  being  appar- 
ently impossible  with  shaken  or  shattered  faith  in 
divine  revelation.  This  revival  of  faith  in  the  Word 
has  brought  the  Church  and  the  world  to  the  test  of 
the  "Law  and  the  Testimony,"  and  awakened  and 
roused  them  by  the  exposure  of  current  errors,  the 
uncovering  of  churchly  formality  and  hypocrisy,  and 
the  judgment  and  condemnation  of  all  sin. 

Secondly.  There  have  been,  in  each  case,  special 
phases  of  error  and  sin,  having  their  clearly  marked 
differences,  and  calling  for  peculiar  and  appropriate 
treatment. 

Thirdly.  There  have  been,  in  each  case,  specific  dif- 
ferences in  the  doctrines  presented  by  preachers  and 
blessed  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  remedying  the  evils  by 
rousing  the  Church  and  saving  sinners — these  doctrines 
being  exactly  suited  to  counteract  the  peculiar  errors 
and  sins  of  the  period. 

The  first  era  of  American  revivals  was  that  under 
Edwards  and  Wliitefield  and  their  successors,  contem- 
poraneous with  the  movement  in  England  under  White- 
field  and  the  Wesleys,  and  dating  back  to  1740'. 

The  philosophical  English  deism,  which,  in  the 
course  of  a  long  controversy,  had  largely  undermined 

The  State  of  ^^^  faith  of  the  English-speaking  peoples. 
Things.  and  resulted  in  general  religious  stupor, 
received  its  logical  death-blow  in  the  publication  of 
Butler's  Analogy  of  Religion,  in  1738.  In  New  England, 
which,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  in  consequence  of 
the  immigration  of  much  of  the  better  Puritan  element 
from  England,  became  the  great  center  of  theological 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  28 1 

thought,  the  skepticism  showed  itself  in  the  prevalence 
of  mere  formalism  in  religion,  in  place  of  the  system  of 
gospel  grace  that  lays  stress  on  regeneration  and  vital 
piety;  and  in  the  consequent  prevalence  of  open  im- 
morality in  the  conduct  or  of  trust  in  mere  morality, 
in  place  of  a  life  of  Christian  virtue.  The  world  had 
been  largely  received  into  the  Church,  in  consequence 
of  ignoring  the  doctrine  of  the  new  birth,  of  the  bap- 
tism of  the  children  of  those  who  were  not  members  of 
the  Church  and  their  admission  to  the  Lord's  Supper, 
of  regarding  the  sacraments  as  saving  ordinances,  and 
of  other  like  irregularities.  There  had  thus  grown  up 
a  system  of  works  that,  in  the  American  Church  of 
Edwards'  day,  had  produced  the  same  fruits  that  were 
produced  by  it  in  the  early  church  at  Rome,  and  to 
the  remedying  of  which  Paul  had  directed  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans — that  is,  they  had  ''made  the  grace  of 
God  without  effect."  * 

In  the  Great  Awakening,  as  it  has  been  called, 
Edwards,  Bellamy,  and  their  contemporaries  planted 
themselves  solidly  on  the  assumption  and  distinct 
reaffirmation  of  the  authority  of  the  Word  of  God, 
They  met  the  ultra  Arminianism  and  churchly  legalism 
by  appealing  to  Paul's  doctrine  to  the  Romans  in  anal- 
ogous circumstances — the  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  in  the  Divine  Redeemer.  This  w^as  the  one  com- 
mon burden  of  the  preaching  of  the  day.  As  essen- 
tially connected  with  justification,  tremendous  stress 
was  laid,  in  this  era,  upon  the  condemning  power  of 
the  law,  and  the  lost  condition  of  the  sinner,  in  order 
to  leave  the  sinner  hopeless,  unless  he  could  obtain 
justification  through  the  righteousness  of  the  crucified 
Savior,  and  find  refuge  in  him;  while  the  necessity  for 
the  new  birth  was  emphasized,  in  order  to  bring  the 

Rom.  iii.  3. 


282     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

formal  and  godless  professor  to  despair  of  deliverance 
and  salvation  except  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
These  were  the  distinctive  dogmatic  features  of  the 
first  era  of  revivals,  and  these  were  the  specific  doc- 
trines blessed  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  connection  with 
the  Great  Awakening. 

The  second  era  of  American  revivals — that  in 
which  President  Dwight,  Dr.  Edward  Dorr  Grifiin,  and 

Second  Era  of  Others   were  among  the    leaders    in    its 

Revivals.       earlier  phase;    and    Drs.    Nettleton  and 

Finney  the  leading  revivalists  in  its  later  phase — may 

be  reckoned  from  1797,  and  it  extended  well  into  the 

nineteenth  century. 

A  period  of  backsliding  and  moral  defection  followed 
the  Great  Awakening.  The  errors  and  sins  of  this 
period  were  again  of  a  peculiar  character.  A  blatant 
and  scofiing  form  of  skepticism  had  taken  the  place  of 
the  old,  reasoned  deism,  and  had  sought  to  undermine 
Christianity  and  the  authority  of  the  Bible  in  another 
way.  The  French  skeptics  and  their  followers  had 
laughed  the  Word  of  God  out  of  court,  had  gone 
squarely  to  the  polls  and  voted,  "There  is  no  God," 
and  then  had  formally  repudiated  the  sovereign  rule  of 
God.  In  connection  with  the  American  and  French 
revolutions,  and  in  consequence  of  the  sympathy  re- 
sulting from  the  generous  aid  we  had  received  from 
the  French  during  our  Revolutionary  War,  this  infi- 
delity had  spread  widely  in  this  country,  either  in  its 
more  popular  and  scoffing  form,  as  represented  by 
Voltaire  and  his  compeers,  or  in  its  coarser  and  more 
brutal  form,  as  represented  by  Tom  Paine.  It  had 
gained  a  hold,  especially  among  many  of  those  who 
laid  claim  to  high  intelligence  and  culture,  and  who 
were  proud  to  be  considered  *'  free-thinkers  ";    and  it 


THE   PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  283 

had  greatly  affected  a  large  number  of  the  public  men 
and  of  the  young  men  in  the  colleges  and  seminaries 
of  learning.  There  was  a  wide-spread  revolt  against 
authority  in  every  form,  but  especially  in  religion, 
against  the  authority  of  God  and  his  Word.  The  prac- 
tical creed  of  these  men  may  be  summed  up  in  the 
sentence  :   "  We  will  not  have  God  to  reign  over  us." 

But  error  in  faith  and  practise  had  come  in  from 
another  side.  The  preaching  in  the  Great  Awakening 
naturally  erred  by  defect.  In  keeping  their  minds 
intently  fixed  upon  the  central  truth  of  justification 
by  faith,  as  furnishing  the  antidote  to  the  corrupting 
influence  of  formality  and  legality,  the  preachers  had 
not,  perhaps,  laid  sufficient  stress  upon  the  neces- 
sity for  an  active  life  of  Christian  duty,  as  the  neces- 
sary result  of  the  true  life  of  faith.  At  all  events  the 
Church,  after  the  day  of  Edwards,  fell  into  this  error. 
''Dead  orthodoxy"  had  been  the  result,  accompanied 
too  often  by  open  immoralities,  or  at  least  by  their 
advocacy  in  the  sacred  name  of  liberty. 

Moreover,  the  success  and  prosperity  that  had  at- 
tended the  American  Republic  had  led  to  boastful 
pride  and  arrogance.  The  nation  that  had  "  whipped 
England  could  whip  the  world,"  and  did  not  feel  like 
acknowledging  any  sovereign  but  the  "sovereign 
people."  Reaction  was  inevitable.  The  dreadful  ex- 
cesses of  the  French  Revolution,  acknowledged  and 
boasted  of  as  the  legitimate  fruit  of  the  skeptical 
theories,  the  equally  dreadful  licentiousness  of  the 
leading  skeptics  themselves,  and  the  threatened  disso- 
lution of  society  and  of  Christian  civilization,  drove 
men  back  to  the  Bible  and  Christianity  by  the  con- 
trast, and  forced  upon  the  masses,  almost  uncon- 
sciously to  themselves,  a  firm  conviction  of  the  abso- 


284     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

lute  necessity  for  the  authority  of  God  as  a  foundation 
for  life  and  religion.  The  influence  of  that  great 
Christian  philanthropist,  Wilberforce,  in  introducing 
the  knowledge  of  a  higher  Christian  life  among  the 
nobility  and  the  educated  classes  abroad,  together  with 
the  disgust  with  which  the  folly  and  corruption  that 
had  characterized  the  leaders  and  literature  and  society 
of  the  time  of  the  Restoration  and  of  the  Georges, 
had  caused  many  of  the  more  intelligent  to  turn  to  the 
Bible  and  Christianity  for  refuge  and  help. 

The  leaders  in  the  reaction — such  men  as  Dwight, 
Griffin,  and  the  elder  Mills — fell  back  once  more  upon 
the  Bible,  assuming,  affirming,  or  proving,  by  unan- 
swerable arguments,  its  divine  authority,  and  they 
directed  their  preaching  intelligently  against  the  pre- 
vailing errors  and  sin.  The  peculiar  dogmatic  feature 
of  this  era,  appearing  to  a  large  extent  in  all  the 
preaching,  was  necessarily  the  sovereignty  of  God. 
The  people  had  largely  revolted  against  God,  and 
needed  to  be  made  to  feel,  to  the  utmost,  that  there  is 
an  infinite  God  above  all  and  controlling  all,  and  the 
arbiter  of  future  destiny.  The  Spirit  of  God  made 
use  of  this  doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of  God  in  the 
preaching  of  that  age  of  revival;  and,  in  the  teaching 
of  the  strong  men  of  the  day,  it  became  a  trumpet-call 
to  repentance  and  judgment.  The  message  was: 
''Submit  to  God,  your  rightful  sovereign."  **  Throw 
down  the  weapons  of  your  rebellion." 

The  churchly  and  personal  errors  and  sins  of  the 
times  were  met  by  emphasizing  the  doctrines  of  re- 
pentance and  of  a  holy  life,  and  the  personal  duty  to 
love  and  serve  God  with  all  the  soul,  might,  mind,  and 
strength.  The  message  became:  "  Repent,  and  turn 
yourselves  from  all  your  transgressions."     "  Son,  give 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  285 

me  thine  heart."     ''Devote  yourself  and  your  life  to 
the  service  of  God." 

The  Holy  Spirit  led  the  preachers  to  use  just  the 
doctrines  needed  to  meet  the  case.  It  is  obvious  that 
the  natural  tendency  of  the  call  to  submission  and 
duty  was  to  make  practical  Christians.  Great  reform 
movements  sprang  up  against  intemperance,  profanity, 
Sabbath  desecration,  licentiousness,  slavery,  war,  etc. 
The  great  benevolent  and  missionary  agencies  came 
into  existence — the  Bible  Society,  Tract  Society,  mis- 
sion societies,  etc.  A  powerful  and  permanent  im- 
pulse was  given  to  home  missions  and  to  foreign 
missions.  The  opening  half  of  the  century  witnessed 
a  marked  elevation  in  Christian  ideals,  character,  and 
activity. 

The  third  era  of  American  revivals  began  with  the 
great  awakening  of  1858.     It  was  a  revival  among  the 
people.     It  made  revivalists,  rather  than    Third  Era  of 
was   made  by  them,    and   has   been    es-      Revivals, 
timated   to    have   added   a   million   members   to    the 
churches. 

A  reaction  had  followed  the  second  era  of  revivals. 
The  authority  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  was  attacked 
from  a  new  point  of  view.  Certain  advocates  of  imma- 
ture science,  or  of  **  science  falsely  so  called,"  insisted 
that  the  latest  discoveries  of  astronomy,  geology,  and 
other  sciences  contradicted  the  Bible,  and  that,  there- 
fore, the  Bible  must  be  every  way  false,  untrust- 
worthy, and  worthless.  The  wide  publication  of  their 
views,  and  their  loud  advocacy  in  the  newspapers,  at 
the  post-offices  and  corner  groceries  and  gathering- 
places,  and  even  in  the  rationalistic  pulpits,  led  to  a 
rapid  extension  of  their  influence  and  the  consequent 
weakening  of  the  faith  of  many. 


286     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

It  was  during  this  period  that  German  rationalistic 
criticism  began  to  exert  a  large  influence  against  the 
acceptance  of  the  Scriptures  as  the  Word  of  God.  A 
special  agent  in  introducing  it  was  Theodore  Parker, 
then  of  Boston,  whose  work  in  this  direction  cul- 
minated in  the  translation  of  De  Wette's  Iiitroductio7i 
to  the  Old  Testa77ient.  That  English  scholar,  Frederick 
W.  Newman,  also  did  much  toward  undermining  faith 
in  the  Scriptures  by  presenting,  in  Phases  of  Faith^ 
the  universal  religion  common  to  all  creeds — a  view 
that  at  once  appealed  to  and  embodied  the  philo- 
sophical Zeitgeist.  More  than  all  else,  perhaps,  the 
philosophy  of  August  Comte  acted  as  a  disintegrating 
and  undermining  power.  Positivism  was  silent  about 
the  existence  of  a  Deity,  and  thus  practically  atheistic. 
It  made  nature's  laws  the  only  providence,  and  obe- 
dience to  them  the  only  piety.  It  thus  brought  in  the 
sway  of  naturalism  and  anti-supernaturalism. 

Moreover,  out  of  the  preaching  of  the  previous  era 
there  had  resulted,  by  emphasis  of  responsibility  and 
human  duty,  a  tendency  to  undue  exaltation  of  human 
ability,  and  a  characteristic  self-sufficiency  on  the  part 
of  the  impenitent,  in  the  assurance  that  they  could 
repent  when  they  pleased,  and  so  did  not  need  any 
special  help  from  God.  The  emphasis  laid  upon  duty 
had  resulted  in  the  depreciation  of  faith;  and  this 
again  had  reacted  upon  the  sense  of  duty,  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  threaten  its  annihilation  and  the  reduc- 
tion of  Christian  activity  to  the  mere  management  of 
the  machinery  of  organization. 

Besides,  new  secularizing  forces  had  come  in  and 
changed  the  whole  face  of  society.  The  great  gold- 
fields  of  California  had  been  discovered  and  their 
riches  developed.     Science  in  various  forms  had  begun 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  287 

to  be  widely  applied  to  the  arts  and  industries — in  the 
chemical  laboratory,  in  the  mines,  and  in  the  mag- 
netic telegraph,  and  in  innumerable  other  inventions. 
The  application  of  steam  to  locomotion  and  machine- 
production  had  covered  the  rivers  and  oceans  with 
steamers,  gridironed  the  continent  with  railways,  and 
opened  the  way  to  possibilities  of  almost  fabulous 
production  of  the  means  of  enjoyment  and  luxury. 
Intense  worldliness  threatened  to  engulf  the  Church. 

The  attacks  upon  the  Scriptures  by  the  scientists  and 
the  rationalists  were  met,  their  objections  answered, 
and  their  arguments  refuted,  by  such  men  as  Thomas 
Chalmers,  John  Pye  Smith,  Hugh  Miller,  Pritchard, 
Edward  Hitchcock,  Arnold  Guyot,  and  James  D. 
Dana,  and  by  such  men  as  Charles  Hodge,  Henry  B. 
Smith,  Ezra  Abbot,  Mark  Hopkins,  Tayler  Lewis,  and 
many  others;  so  that  the  intelligent  and  educated  were 
quite  generally  satisfied  that  both  science  and  reason 
had  failed  to  impugn  the  authority  of  God's  Word. 

But  the  religious  awakening  came  in  a  most  unusual 
way,  and  took  on  an  entirely  new  aspect.  The  pre- 
vious movements,  already  considered,  were  intimately 
connected  with  some  special  presentation  of  dogmatic 
truth,  or  with  the  appearance  of  great  leaders;  but 
the  revival  of  1858  came  as  one  result  of  the  pressure 
of  a  peculiar  providence.  A  great  financial  crisis  had 
some  time  before  prostrated  the  industries  of  the 
country;  the  depression  continued  and  increased  until 
vast  numbers,  left  without  work,  were  on  the  verge  of 
abject  want.  In  tneir  despair  they  were  driven  to 
turn  to  God  in  prayer.  God,  who  has  many  ways  of 
accomplishing  his  purposes,  had  this  time  roused  men 
by  smiting  their  idol.  Mammon! 

New  York  City,  the  center  of  commercial  depres- 


288     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

sion,  was  the  place  in  which  the  movement  originated. 
The  Fulton  Street  Noon  Prayer-meeting,  established 
October  8,  1857,  with  a  layman,  Mr.  J.  C.  Lanphier,  in 
charge,  was  the  point  of  origin.  That  meeting  was 
itself  an  inspiration.  In  three  months  after  it  was 
opened  the  great  revival  had  already  begun.  In  six 
months  noon  prayer-meetings  had  spread  across  the 
continent,  in  all  the  cities  and  centers,  and  the  revival 
went  with  them.  Dr.  A.  P.  Marvin,  in  the  Bibliotheca 
Sacra^  for  1859,  says  : 

* '  Perhaps  there  was  no  period  of  four  months'  duration,  in  the  time 
of  Edwards,  when  the  results  were  so  great  and  astonishing  as  during 
the  four  months  which  followed  the  opening  of  February  in  the  year 
1858.  And  as  the  present  work  is  still  going  forward  with  power, 
may  we  not  hope  that  its  final  results  will  mark  it  as  the  grandest 
since  the  planting  of  Christianity  in  the  midst  of  pagan  darkness  and 
pollution  ! " 

The  work  spread  from  the  prayer-meetings  to  the 
churches,  and  the  preachers  added  their  messages  to 
the  sympathetic  influence  of  the  union  gatherings.  In 
Philadelphia  alone  ten  thousand  new  members  were 
gathered  into  the  churches  at  that  time.  Dr.  T.  W. 
Chambers,  in  his  memorial  volume  on  The  Noon 
P7'ayer-f?ieeting,  in  Fulton  Street,  during  its  first  year, 
gives  an  account  of  a  memorable  sermon  by  the 
lamented  Rev.  Dudley  A.  Tyng, 

"where  the  congregation  numbered  more  than  five  thousand  per- 
sons, and  where  '  the  slain  of  the  Lord  '  were  more  perhaps  as  the 
result  of  a  single  sermon  than  almost  any  sermon  in  modern  times." 

Dr.  W.  W.  Newell — in  Revivals  :  Ho7v  and  When — esti- 
mates that  ''  more  than  a  million  of  souls  were  saved." 
It  was  not  a  revival  for  preaching  the  doctrines  of 
dogmatic  theology,  but  for  the  Spirit  to  write  certain 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  289 

needed  practical  doctrines  in  the  heart  of  the  Church. 
It  demonstrated  for  Christendom  the  power  of  prayer. 
It   was  a  great   sympathetic,    social    movement,    that 
brought    Christians    of    all     denominations    together 
heart  to    heart,   and   demonstrated   and    realized   the 
essential  unity  of  Christendom  and  the  power  that  lies 
in   this  unity.     It  brought  to   the   knowledge  of  the 
Church  sources  of  untold  power  hitherto    Brought  out 
unrecognized.     It  fixed  in  the  hearts  of       the  Lay 
all    Christians    the    doctrine    that    every       Element, 
member  of  the  Church  of  Christ  is  a  coworker  with 
Christ  in   the  work  of  saving  the  world,  and  that  a 
*'  manifestation  of  the  Spirit  is  given  to  each  one  for 
the  profit "  of  the  Church.     It  thus  awakened  and  led 
to  the  development  and  organization  of  the  lay  element^ 
which  in  church  and  mission  work,  and  in  the  organ- 
ized effort  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
and  the  various  young  people's  societies,  and  in  the 
Salvation    Army    movement,    has    made    it    such    an 
incalculable  power  in  Gospel  work. 

Apparently  the  Spirit,  with  wise  purpose,  kept  the 
mind  of  Christians  generally  centered  on  the  great 
practical  principles  that  were  being  wrought  into  the 
life  of  the  Church;  directing  the  preachers,  in  their 
regular  or  revival  ministrations,  in  supplementing  the 
work  and  giving  it  to  some  extent  a  solid  basis  in  the 
law  of  God  and  in  the  great  doctrines  of  grace. 

On  the  whole,  it  is  easy  to  see,  at  this  later  day, 
that  the  revival  of  1858  transformed  the  life  and  work 
of  Protestant  Christendom,  and  gathered  its  forces 
together  to  hold  them  in  readiness  for  some  mighty 
future  enterprise  that  should  need  the  combined  effort 
of  all  Christians  in  the  entire  Holy  Catholic  Church. 
It  has  been  seen,  in  the  discussion  of  *'  the  Preacher's 


290     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

Commission,"  that  the  Church  of  to-day  is  confronted 
by  such  an  enterprise,  in  which  ministers  are  God's 
appointed  heralds  and  leaders  of  the  people. 

2.   Application  of  the  Ascertained  Principles. 

Having  investigated  the  principles  that  have  pre- 
vailed in  recent  great  and  confessedly  genuine 
-J.  ,  -  revivals  of  religion,  the  preacher  is  pre- 
FourthEraof  pared  for  the  methodical  and  practical 
Revivals.  application  of  these  principles  to  the 
great  enterprise  that  immediately  confronts  him;  and 
to  aid  thereby  in  bringing  about  th.&  foiirth  and  greater 
era  of  revivals  now  called  for. 

So  much  space  has  been  devoted  to  the  survey  just 
made,  in  order  to  assist  in  grasping  the  situation,  and 
understanding,  in  the  light  of  the  history  of  past 
awakenings,  just  what  is  needed,  in  the  preaching  of 
to-day,  to  make  most  powerfully  for  an  awakening 
that  may  bring  the  Church  to  the  summit  of  its 
achievement,  in  that  immediate,  final,  and  complete 
carrying  out  of  the  Great  Commission  that  seems  to 
be  clearly  called  for  by  the  "  signs  of  the  times." 

It  can  not  be  too  strongly  emphasized  that,  in  view 
of  the  imperative  demand  made  upon  the  preacher 
Gravity  of  the  ^^^  the  Church,  in  the  present  status  of 
Situation.  the  commission  under  which  they  are 
acting,  the  situation  is  one  of  peculiar  gravity.  The 
work  to  be  done  manifestly  surpasses  everything  that 
has  heretofore  been  attempted.  The  obstacles  in  the 
way  are  immense.  No  half-hearted  consecration,  no 
half-intelligent  purpose,  no  half-way  effort,  will  either 
win  or  deserve  success.  Nothing  short  of  a  mighty 
awakening,  that  shall  rouse  all  Christendom,  can  pos- 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  29 1 

sibly  lead  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  divinely  ap- 
pointed task  of  the  Church. 

There  is  need  that  every  preacher  should  bravely 
face  the  situation  and  fearlessly  direct  his  preaching 
so  as  to  meet  the  peculiar  exigencies.  The  Exigencies 
The  needs  in  various  regions  will  differ,  to  be  Met. 
but  the  doctrinal  preaching  for  hastening  the  coming 
fourth  era  of  revivals,  must  meet  the  peculiar  exigen- 
cies. These  exigencies,  that  must  be  fairly  met,  can 
be  taken  in  at  a  glance. 

Powerful  influences  are  operating  directly  upon  the 
outside  world  to  unsettle  faith  in  the  Scriptures  as  the 
Word  of  God,  and  at  the  same  time  largely  molding 
the  unintelligent  and  unthinking  churchly  and  Christian 
opinion  in  the  same  direction.  Atomism,  materialistic 
evolution,  secularism,  are  in  the  air;  so  also  are  the 
so-called  principles  of  the  rationalistic  higher  criticism. 
The  two  tendencies  conspire  in  seeking  to  eliminate 
the  supernatural  from  what  Christians  regard  as  the 
world  of  God  and  the  Word  of  God.  The  men  under 
their  influence  are  always  asking  :  "  What  is  written  in 
the  Book  of  Herbert  Spencer,  or  of  John  Stuart  Mill  ? " 
''What  is  written  in  the  Book  of  Kuenen,  or  of 
Robertson  Smith  ?  "  instead  of  the  Christian  question: 
'*  What  is  written  in  the  Book  of  God  ? " 

The  immense  development  of  mere  material  wealth; 
the  infatuated  devotion  of  men  and  means  to  its 
increase;  the  creation  of  gigantic  combinations,  at 
once  soulless  and  conscienceless,  for  its  rapid  and  vast 
accumulation;  and  the  idleness,  luxury,  vice,  and  ruin 
that  follow  upon  its  possession  and  misuse,  seem 
to  have  doomed  the  age  to  the  service  of  Mammon — 
a  servitude  the  most  cruel  and  degrading  of  all  the 
modern  idolatries. 


292       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

The  demoralization  resulting  from  the  greatest  of 
modern  wars  still  rests  like  an  awful  shadow  and 
blight  upon  the  nation;  and  helps  on  the  general  tide 
of  vice  and  crime. 

Almost  equally  powerful  influences  are  operating  on 
the  Church  from  within.  The  shaking  of  faith  in  God 
and  the  Scriptures,  and  the  tide  of  worldliness,  have 
affected  most  seriously  the  popular  conceptions  of  the 
Christian  life.  The  views  of  fifty  years  ago  regarding 
social  usages  and  amusements,  regarding  theater- 
going, dancing,  card-playing,  and  all  that,  have  been 
very  radically  changed.  What  was  then  regarded  as 
essentially  Christian  is  now  in  many  quarters  sneer- 
ingly  pronounced  '*  Puritanical."  The  materialist  and 
sensationalist  views  of  right  and  wrong  have  revolu- 
tionized the  views  of  sin  and  crime,  and  the  treatment 
of  them  in  Church  and  State. 

The  sympathetic  character  of  the  revival  of  1858, 
so  far  as  not  counteracted  by  the    preaching  of   the 

Depreciation    pastors,     has   had    its    marked  molding 

of  Doctrine,  effects  on  the  character  of  the  church 
members.  Men  were  not  driven  to  God,  in  that  re- 
vival, by  a  sense  of  sin,  but  by  a  sense  of  need  and 
helplessness.  Some  have  designated  it  "The  Revival 
of  Love."  There  was  little  or  no  preaching  of  law,  or 
of  justification  by  faith,  or  of  the  necessity  of  the  new 
birth;  the  first  three  chapters  of  Paul's  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  were  skipped;  hence,  there  was  comparatively 
little  sense  of  sin  or  of  spiritual  need.  The  rousing 
and  soul-stirring  messages  of  the  Edwardian  era  were 
conspicuously  absent  during  all  this  time;  nor  were 
those  of  the  later  period,  under  Dwight  and  Nettleton 
and  Finney,  much  heard.  Often  the  only  cry  was  : 
*'Come    to  Jesus,   poor,    needy,   helpless    soul  !      He 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  293 

wants  you  to  come;  he  needs  you  !  "  The  tendency  to 
decry  doctrine  and  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures  was 
very  marked  and  has  sensibly  increased. 

And  in  all  the  years  since,  the  ingatherings  in  the 
churches,  in  the  schools  and  colleges,  at  the  mission 
stations,  in  the  young  people's  meetings,  have  been 
largely  by  this  same  sympathetic  method.  The  social 
spirit  and  the  rage  for  organization  have  obviously  too 
often  largely  overlaid  and  partially  smothered  and 
hindered  the  spiritual  life  and  activities,  or  preoc- 
cupied the  attention  and  exhausted  the  energies  with 
the  mere  machinery  of  an  activity  mainly  churchly  or 
worldly.  The  perfected  machinery  remains  as  a  per- 
manent result,  which  may  be  of  great  service  in  the 
future. 

The  great  prominence  given  to  lay  effort,  on  the 
part  of  old  and  young,  while  fixing  in  the  mind  of  the 
Church  the  call  of  every  Christian  to  work  for  Christ, 
has  naturally  had  the  effect  upon  '^novices  "  against 
which  Paul  warned  Timothy  to  guard  in  his  selection 
of  leaders  for  the  churches.* 

These  peculiar  exigencies  and  needs  the  preacher 
should  aim  to  meet  in  his  message.  He  should  seek 
to  remedy  all  these  defects  and  to  lead  men,  in  the 
Church  and  out  of  it,  to  right  views  of  sin,  as  a  thing 
to  be  abhorred  and  repented  of,  and  he  should 
endeavor  to  bring  to  bear  all  the  sympathy,  and 
Christian  activity,  and  machinery  of  organization,  and 
power  of  prayer,  in  carrying  out  immediately  Christ's 
command. 

The  needs  in  various  regions  will  differ,  but  the  doc- 
trinal preaching  for  hastening  the  coming  Doctrines  for 
fourth  era  of  revivals,  will  be  required  to  the  Fourth  Era. 
emphasize,  in    special    manner,  the    following  points  : 

*   T     Tim       111      f\ 


294       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

First,  the  divine  authority  of  the  Bible  as  the  Word 
of  God,  by  which  all  light,  whether  in  the  Church  or 
in  the  world,  is  to  be  judged;  and  the  supreme  and 
sovereign  authority  of  God  himself,  the  Creator,  Law- 
giver, and  Judge  of  the  world.  This  is  required  in 
order  to  restore  the  faith  shaken  by  the  senseless 
materialism  and  criticism  of  the  passing  time,  and  to 
give  God  his  rightful  place  back  of  law  and  conscience 
and  life.  Moreover,  it  is  needed  to  lift  Christian  doc- 
trine^rwhich  is  merely  Bible  teaching,  and  as  neces- 
sary to  man's  spiritual  life  as  air  or  bread  to  his  physi- 
cal life — from  the  discredited  position  that  has  resulted 
from  the  defects  of  the  teachings  of  the  last  great  re- 
vival; and  restore  it  to  its  true  place,  as  the  very  basis 
and  ground  of  all  powerful  Christian  life  and  activity. 
There  are  already  clear  indications  of  a  reaction  in  this 
direction,  in  the  wide-spread  repudiation  of  rationalis- 
tic criticism  and  socialistic  secularism,  and  in  the  in- 
creasing interest  in  systematic  study  of  the  Word  of 
God.  So  marked  are  the  signs  of  change  in  this  rcr 
gard  that  some  of  the  prophets  are  already  predicting 
the  speedy  coming  of  what  is  needed  to  save  the 
Church  life  from  degenerating  into  mere  sentimental- 
ism — a  great  dog??iatic  revival. 

Secondly^  the  requirements  and  obligations  of  the 
Law  of  God.  This  is  requisite,  if  sinners  are  ever  to 
understand  and  appreciate  their  lost  condition,  and 
their  need  of  Bible  salvation  as  something  infinitely 
different  from  a  mere  sentimental  salvation;  and  are 
ever  to  ''  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come,"  to  find  refuge 
in  Christ  as  their  Savior.  The  dreadful  lawlessness 
and  consciencelessness  of  the  age  emphasize  the  call 
for  *  Maw-work  "  as  profound  and  thorough  as  in  the 
age  of  Edwards  or  of  Nettleton  and  Finney,  or  as  in 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  295 

the  age  when  Paul  had  to  deal  with  Roman  sinners  in 
his  epistle — and  for  law-work  with  a  trumpet-call  to 
repentance  added. 

Thirdly^  the  Bible  teaching  concerning  justification 
by  faith  a;id  regeneration  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  the 
only  way  in  any  age  to  vital  piety  and  a  genuine  Chris- 
tian life.  The  defect  of  the  revival  of  1858  in  this 
regard  needs  to  be  remedied  by  the  revival  of  the 
closing  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In  this  way 
alone  can  the  superficial  and  mechanical  character  be 
eliminated  from  the  various  phases  of  churchly  life  and 
work. 

Fourthly^  the  necessity  for  a  new  baptism  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  to  counteract  the  swelling  tide  of  world- 
liness,  and  to  lead  the  Christian  Church  to  understand 
that  its  supreme  business  is  the  saving  of  the  world  by 
the  Gospel,  and  that  to  this  end  its  wealth,  its  ener- 
gies, and  its  members  are  to  be  consecrated.  Noth- 
ing else  can  stop  the  mad  worship  at  the  shrine  of 
Mammon  and  turn  men  back  to  God.  Nothing  else 
can  lead  the  Church  to  furnish  what  is  needed  for  the 
carrying  out  of  Christ's  command.  Nothing  else  can 
transform  the  present  spirit  of  self-seeking  and  self- 
indulgence  into  the  spirit  of  self-denial  and  self-sacri- 
fice, of  which  Christ  himself  set  the  example  and  with- 
out which  his  work  can  not  be  done  as  it  should  be 
done;  and  lead  to  the  spiritual  service  of  Christ  in  the 
saving  of  humanity,  in  which  the  work  of  the  Gospel 
consists.  Most  of  all  is  it  to  be  emphasized  that  such 
baptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  the  very  thing  now 
needed  to  make  available  for  spiritual  results  the 
.power  of  prayer,  the  sympathetic  and  social  forces,  all 
the  rising  tides  of  Christian  unity,  and  all  the  per- 
fected machinery   of    religious  effort   and   activity — 


296     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

giving  force  and  fervor  and  divine  direction  to  them 
all  in  the  conquest  of  the  world  for  Christ.  This  is 
the  only  way  of  becoming  endued  with  power  from  on 
high! 

Fifthly^  the  present  and  immediate  obligation  of  the 
Church  to  give  the  Gospel  to  all  the  world.  This  is 
absolutely  fundamental;  since  it  would  be  irrational  to 
expect  Christians  to  do  what  had  not  been  brought 
home  to  them  as  their  duty  to  Christ. 

Sixthly^  the  necessity  that  the  ministry  and  the 
officers  of  the  Church  should  take  their  places  as  the 
called,  appointed,  and  authorized  leaders  and  directors 
in  the  gospel  work  that  must  be  done.  Their  failure 
in  this  respect  was,  as  already  seen,  a  main  defect  in 
the  awakening  of  1858,  and  in  the  subsequent  years. 
There  was  doubtless  a  providential  necessity  for  this, 
in  order  that  the  lay  element  in  the  Church  might  be 
brought  to  understand  their  duties  and  responsibilities 
in  the  work  of  the  Gospel,  into  which  they  had  hitherto 
entered  to  a  very  limited  extent  only;  and  in  order 
that  a  sympathetic  and  social  element,  which  is  so 
powerful  a  factor  in  all  social  and  religious  move- 
ments, might  be  developed  and  given  the  large  place 
that  belongs  to  it  in  our  Christianity.  The  incom- 
pleteness of  the  results  was  also  doubtless  intended 
to  teach  the  Church  in  general — especially  the  more 
active  lay  element  and  the  ministers  themselves — the 
absolute  necessity  for  the  leadership  of  the  ministry, 
as  doctrinal  instructors  and  as  pastors  and  guides,  in 
all  substantial  and  complete  Christian  work.  The 
experience  of  the  past  generation  has  furnished  an 
example,  on  a  grand  scale,  of  what  Paul  illustrated 
when,  in  writing  to  the  Church  at  Corinth,  he  repre- 
sented the  Church  as  a  ''  body,"  in  which  rational  and 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  297 

effective  activity  requires  all  the  members,  from  head 
to  feet,  to  cooperate,  each  in  its  own  sphere  and  to 
the  utmost  extent  of  its  capabilities.*  The  day  has 
now  come  for  bringing  out  and  emphasizing  this  essen- 
tial ecclesiastical  organism,  and  giving  to  each  part  its 
proper  sphere  and  play,  in  a  combined  effort  of  Prot- 
estant Christendom  for  evangelizing  the  world. 

(II)  Requirements  Made  of  the  Entire 
Ministry. 

A  second  necessity,  no  less  pressing  than  the  one 
already  presented  as  resting  upon  the  individual 
preacher,  is  the  organization  of  a  great  preaching 
campaign — into  which  every  preacher  and  leader  in 
the  Church  shall  enter — having  in  view  the  immediate 
conquest  of  the  world  for  Christ,  in  fulfilment  of  the 
Great  Commission.  A  few  hints  must  suffice  on  this 
topic. 

The  work  can  not  be  accomplished  without  the  most 
comprehensive  union  of  effort.  It  is  too  late  in  the 
history  of  the  world  for  even  the  greatest  of  men  to 
expect,  unaided,  to  accomplish  any  great  public  task. 
Union  and  organization  are  in  the  air,  and  the  great 
man's  greatness  and  wisdom  at  once  are  shown  by  his 
subsidizing  the  largest  possible  number  of  coadjutors 
and  the  largest  possible  amount  of  assistance,  in  carry- 
ing out  his  purposes. 

The  work  must  be  wisely  planned.  It  is  too  late  to 
expect  great  things  to  be  accomplished  by  desultory 
efforts.  The  choicest  business  wisdom  must  be  exer- 
cised in  carrying  out,  as  a  business  enterprise  and  by 
business  methods,  this  greatest  of  all  undertakings 
that  has  been  delegated  to  the  preacher. 
*  I  Cor.  xii.  12-31. 


298    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

The  plan  must  be  designed  with  the  aim  of  reaching 
and  setting  in  motion  every  Christian  and  every  Chris- 
tian organization  and  agency,  and  subsidizing  every 
possible  legitimate  force  and  influence,  secular  and 
social,  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  results  sought, 
in  the  conversion  of  the  world. 

Recourse  must  be  had,  by  the  ministry  unitedly,  to 
the  Spirit  of  God,  from  whom  must  come  the  endue- 
ment  with  power  and  the  dispensation  of  the  requisite 
spiritual  gifts.  The  results  sought  are  incalculably 
great,  but,  under  the  direction  and  impulse  of  the 
Spirit  of  God,  their  ultimate  attainment  may  be  very 
simple  and  direct. 

Let  any  preacher  get  into  his  mind  and  heart  the 
real  aim  of  Gospel-preaching  in  this  age,  and  let  him 

Course  of  an     PJ*oceed  at  once  to  bend  his  preaching  to 

Individual  its  attainment.  This  is  the  starting- 
Minister,  point.  True,  it  may  render  it  necessary 
for  him  to  change  his  whole  method  and  spirit. 
Several  years  ago  the  Rev.  Dr.  Robert  Russell  Booth, 
then  pastor  of  the  University  Place  Presbyterian 
Church,  New  York  City,  was  deeply  impressed  with 
the  value  of  the  revival  at  that  time  going  forward 
in  the  city,  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Moody.  He 
said  to  a  convention  of  ministers  : 

"  Such  a  thing  as  an  inquiry-meeting  had  never  taken  place  under 
my  sober  ministry  in  my  staid  Church  ;  but  I  resolved  that  I  would 
appoint  one.  On  Sabbath  morning  I  preached  fnn  the  text,  '  Come, 
for  all  things  are  now  ready.'  I  said  to  them,  '  This  sermon  pre- 
supposes and  involves  an  invitation,  now  ani  here,  .  .  .  that 
now  and  here  you  are  to  have  an  opportunity  for  accepting  Christ.' 
The  inquiry-meeting  was  appointed,  and  ten  persons  came  in  and 
accepted  Christ.  .  .  Brethren,  have  we  not  to  revolutionize  the 
whole  system  of  preaching,  and  change  somewhat  our  mode  of  opera- 
tions ?     The  trouble  is,  our  sermons  do  not  mount  to  the  climax.     If 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  299 

they  are  mere  orations,  and  theories  of  Christianity,  an  invitation  to 
such  a  meeting  is  incongruous  and  absurd."  * 

A  hearty  affirmative  reply,  on  the  part  of  the 
preacher,  to  Dr.  Booth's  interrogatory,  would  doubt- 
less be  the  needed  initial  impulse  to  the  work  to  be 
done.  The  practical  carrying  out  of  this  affirmation 
would  be  the  initial  movement  in  that  work. 

If  it  is  asked,  What  is  to  be  done  beyond  this  ?  let 
any  Christian  minister,  who  appreciates  the  situation 
and  the  responsibility,  stir  up  the  man  next  to  him, 
in  his  own  church  and  in  the  ministry.  In  this  way 
the  circle  of  influence  will  grow  and  widen.  The 
greatest  and  most  genuine  revivals  that  we  have  ever 
known  have  originated  and  extended  in  this  simple 
way,  without  thought  of  the  presence  or  help  of  the 
special  revivalist. 

Let  every  preacher  who  is  fully  roused  carry  his 
own  ideas  on  this  subject  and  his  own  spirit  into  the 
ecclesiastical  convention  and  organization  with  which 
he  is  connected,  and  thus  reach  and  rouse  the  whole 
brotherhood,  until  all  are  ready  to  unite  in  the  work. 

Let  Christian  officers  and  laymen  stir  up  their  asso- 
ciates and  neighbors,  and  consider  this  great  question 
of  present  duty  with  them,  until  the  whole  Church  is 
roused  and  girded  for  the  work.  Let  the  united 
wisdom  of  all  be  employed  in  planning  and  pushing 
the  campaign. 

The  Spirit  of  God  can  be  relied  upon  for  the  proper 
guidance  of  the  grand  work,  and  for  the  enduement 
with  the  ''power  from  on  high"  with  which  to  carry 
it  forward.  And,  in  the  accomplishment  of  the  great 
individual   tasks  that   enter   into   the  whole  work  of 

*  Revivals  :  Hozv  and  When^  pp.  17,  18. 


300     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

Christ  for  the  world,  we  can  see  no  good  reason  why 
that  commanding  genius  of  reputed  Christian  men, 
such  as  those  who  have  used  their  genius  in  iniqui- 
tously  organizing  great  Sugar  Trusts  and  Standard  Oil 
Trusts,  should  not  be  wrested  by  the  Spirit  of  God 
from  the  service  of  Mammon  and  Satan,  and  employed 
in  such  greater,  reputable,  and  holy  enterprises  as  the 
rapid  evangelization  of  China  or  of  the  Dark  Continent. 
All  these  are  but  hints  and  suggestions  thrown  out 
to  those  who  have  the  promise  that  they  will  be  made 
wise  to  understand  the  will  of  God,  if  they  are  ready 
to  do  that  will.*  The  accomplishment  of  the  glorious 
work  will  undoubtedly  require  the  spiritual  awakening 
and  quickening  of  every  individual  preacher  of  the 
Gospel;  his  intelligent  apprehension  and  appreciation 
of  Christ's  present  call  to  carry  out  his  commission 
now;  and  the  wisest  application  of  his  consecrated 
powers  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  task  set  before 
him.  It  will  require  the  consecrated  and  combined 
effort  of  all  the  ministry,  and  of  all  the  Church,  em- 
bracing the  hosts  of  able  laymen  of  large  business 
capacity  and  experience,  and  the  great  lay  organiza- 
tions of  old  and  young,  in  the  carrying  out  of  the  pur- 
pose of  Christ  by  the  present  generation;  and  the 
persistent  and  unwearied  pushing  of  the  work  along 
all  lines  until  it  is  accomplished. 

Retrospect  and  Prospect. 

To  present  the  possibility  and  the  feasibility  of  the 
immediate  accomplishment  of  this  great  work  of  the 
Gospel  for  the  world  of  mankind,  and  to  make  clear 
the  responsibility  of  the  Church  for  its  being  done 
noiv^  these  chapters  have  been  written.     The  command 

*  John  vii.  17. 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  30I 

of  Christ,  that  it  be  done  now,  is  unmistakable.  The 
evidence  of  the  providential  readiness  of  all  that  is 
necessary  for  the  work  is  overwhelming.  The  signs 
of  the  times  indicate  the  presence  of  the  conditions  of 
the  glorious  coming  of  the  Master  to  victory,  and 
emphasize  the  imminence  of  his  coming. 

In  the  light  of  all  these  considerations,  the  glance 
that  a  living  Church  casts  down  from  the  eminence  to 
which  the  ages  have  brought  her,  can  not  but  be  an 
anxious  one.  Looking  out  upon  the  world,  and  noting 
the  signs  of  the  times,  it  is  impossible  to  resist  the 
conviction  that  she  is  at  the  dawning  of  an  eventful 
period  in  her  history.  The  growth  of  the  modern 
missionary  movement  has  been  confessedly  one  of  the 
marvels  of  the  world.  That  God,  for  the  coming  of 
whose  Kingdom  all  things  are  working  together,  has 
prepared  the  way  for  it  by  the  progress  of  science,  art, 
and  civilization  is  already  noted.  There  has  always 
been  this  same  perishing  world,  but  it  has  heretofore 
been  a  far-off  world.  The  later  centuries  have  been 
bringing  it  nearer  and  into  living  contact  with  the 
Church,  until,  at  last,  by  that  mysterious  electric 
power  that  with  equal  ease  spans  the  continents  and 
oceans  God  is  gathering  the  nations  into  one  mighty 
audience  chamber  of  the  Gospel,  to  the  remotest  aisles 
of  which  every  voice  in  the  Church  may  reach,  and 
the  touch  of  every  hand  vibrate.  The  rapidity  of  the 
flight  of  the  angel  of  the  Apocalypse,  bearing  the  ever- 
lasting Gospel,  seems  about  to  be  realized. 

And  in  the  movements  of  God's  Kingdom  this 
nation  has,  by  its  geographical  position,  its  political 
character,  its  commercial  connection,  and  the  order- 
ings  of  Providence,  been  made  a  center.  Upon  us 
the  Old  World  has  poured  out  its  superabundant  popu- 


302       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

lation.  Besides  the  myriads  brought  near  by  the  won- 
derfully increased  means  of  intercommunication,  here 
are  the  millions  from  darkened  Africa,  thrown  into 
direct  contact  with  the  Church;  furnishing,  so  to  speak, 
the  links  in  the  chain  of  sympathy  that  is  to  bind  her 
to  the  destinies  of  the  world.  Here,  in  control  of  the 
Church,  is  the  learning  requisite  to  translate  the  Bible 
into  every  tongue,  within  the  lifetime  of  a  single  gen- 
eration. Here  is  the  printing-press,  with  which  to 
print  a  copy  of  it  for  every  son  and  daughter  of  Adam 
within  the  same  period.  Saying  nothing  of  the  rest  of 
Christendom,  here  are  the  men  from  whom  messen- 
gers might  in  the  same  time  be  sent  to  every  hamlet 
on  the  face  of  the  globe;  and  here  is  the  beginning  of 
the  very  work  itself  in  the  present  spontaneous  upris- 
ing and  consecration  to  the  work  of  Christ  of  great 
multitudes  of  young  men  and  women,  who  are  either 
preparing  to  go  or  are  already  waiting  to  be  sent. 
And  here  is  the  gold  with  which  to  accomplish  all  this 
work  in  so  brief  space.  The  great  thoroughfares  by 
which  the  missionaries  and  Bibles  might  be  sent  are 
open.  These  considerations  and  facts  open  to  us  the 
glorious  possibilities — what  shall  the  actual  be  ?  A 
complete  Christianity,  working  with  full  power  in  the 
Church  of  this  land,  and  out  from  it,  would,  we  doubt 
not,  in  the  course  of  the  next  quarter  century,  com- 
pass the  globe  with  its  saving  and  elevating  influences, 
and  usher  in  the  millennial  glory.     Shall  all  this  be  ? 

The  answer  will  depend,  in  chief  measure,  under 
God,  upon  what  the  ministry  shall  be  for  these  coming 
years,  and  upon  what  the  character  of  the  preaching 
shall  be.  Providence  has  prepared  the  universal  mines 
for  shattering  with  equal  ease  and  completeness  the 
newest  and  most  formidable  strongholds  of  iniquity  in 


THE    PREACHING    FOR    THESE    TIMES.  303 

the  centers  of  Christendom,  and  the  intrenched  cita- 
dels of  paganism  hoary  with  age.  The  trains  have 
been  laid  and  are  waiting  for  the  impulse,  the  leader- 
ship, the  moral  inspiration  of  the  ministry,  with  the 
**  tongues  of  fire  "  and  the  lips  touched  with  the  live 
coals  from  off  the  altar  of  God,  to  rouse  the  Church, 
fire  the  train,  and  complete  the  great  consummation. 
What  will  the  preacher  and  the  Church  have  wherewith 
to  answer  the  Master,  if  the  work  be  not  done  without 
delay  ? 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  PREACHER  AS  A  PASTOR  IN  THESE 

TIMES. 

Preaching  is  admittedly  a  most  important,  as  well 
as  a  most  solemn  work;  but  the  gathering  of  its  fruits 
into  the  Church  of  Christ,  and  their  conservation 
there,  depend  upon  the  preacher's  office  of  pastor,  or 
shepherd  of  the  flock  of  God.  Christ's  threefold 
charge  to  Peter,  on  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Tiberias, 
was:  *' Feed  my  sheep."  *' Feed  my  lambs."  ''Shep- 
herd my  sheep."  That  charge  is  on  the  preacher  and 
pastor  still.  The  preacher's  commission,  message, 
and  furnishing  prepare  for  his  preaching;  but  the 
preaching  and  all  the  rest  for  his  work  in  the  care  of 
souls,  including  their  ingathering  into  the  Church  and 
their  nurture  and  direction  in  the  work  of  the  Church. 
If  the  question  be  asked.  What  is  the  work  of  the 
preacher  as  pastor  in  these  times  ?  the  answer  may  be 
given: 

The  ifigathermg  and  shepherding  of  those  who  are  saved 
by  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel^  and  their  wise  organization 
and  direction  in  the  great  campaign  for  the  i7n77iediate 
salvation  of  the  world. 

The  problem  of  the  pastorate  for  these  times — how 

to  accomplish  this  work — is  certainly  one  whose  im- 

The  Problem  of    portance  is  only  equaled  by  its  difficulty. 

the  Pastorate,     jhe  minister,  in  his  twofold  character  of 

preacher  and  pastor,    and  as   the  divinely  appointed 

304 


THE   PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR   IN    THESE    TIMES.       305 

leader  in  the  work  of  the  Church,  must  have  an  intense 
and  abiding  interest  in  its  discussion  and  solution. 

It  is  proposed  to  consider  the  question  of  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  pastorate  in  its  relations  to  the  circum- 
stances and  the  wants,  the  great  difficulties  and  the 
imperative  demands,  of  the  present  age,  in  order  to 
ascertain,  if  possible,  what  needs  to  be  done  to  bring 
it  up  to  the  requisite  efficiency  for  completing  the  suc- 
cessful carrying  out  of  the  preacher's  commission, 
and  obtaining  the  desired  results  from  the  preacher's 
message. 

In  dealing  with  this  subject,  we  shall  consider  the 
work  of  the  pastorate  as  embracing  all  the  duties  of 
the  minister  resulting  from  his  office,  except  those 
that  have  to  do  directly  with  the  pulpit  and  prepara- 
tion for  it;  and  shall  take  it  for  granted  that,  under 
God,  the  efficiency  of  the  work  of  the  Church  depends 
very  much  upon  it;  the  two  offices  mutually  presuppos- 
ing and  involving  each  other.  It  may  also  be  said,  at 
the  outset,  that  this  discussion  has  nothing  to  do  with 
finding  some  new  method  of  doing  God's  work  that 
shall  be  better  than  the  ordinary  method;  for,  in  the 
workings  of  grace,  no  less  than  of  creation,  the  rule 
laid  down  by  God  for  guidance  is  always  broad  enough 
to  meet  the  wants  of  all  ages;  so  that  the  Gospel  and 
the  essential  law  of  the  pastorate  can  as  little  need  to 
be  changed,  improved,  or  supplemented  as  can  the  law 
of  gravitation.  In  short,  the  highest  that  the  Church 
can  hope  to  do  is  to  hold  fast  by  God's  method,  and  to 
adjust  that  method  to  the  needs  of  the  times  in  which 
we  live. 


3o6     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry 

SECTION  FIRST. 

Changed   Pastoral   Conditions   and   Popular  Ways   of 
Meeting  Them. 

Before  considering  either  the  Divine  Law  of  the  pas- 
torate or  the  required  adjustment  to  present  needs,  it 
is  necessary  to  take  account  of  some  of  the  altered 
circumstances  that  have  materially  modified  the  con- 
ditions of  pastoral  work,  and  to  glance  at  some  popu- 
lar ways  of  regarding  the  law  of  the  pastorate  and 
adapting  it  to  meet  existing  wants. 

I.   Revolution  in  Pastoral  Conditions. 

In  taking  a  survey  of  the  state  of  things  in  our  own 
land,  as  bearing  upon  this  subject,  it  becomes  clear 
that  a  great  revolution  has  been  going  forward,  in  the 
business,  the  character,  the  social  usages,  and  the 
methods  of  Christian  work,  and  that,  while  this  revolu- 
tion has  materially  changed  the  elements  that  are  to  be 
taken  into  account  in  solving  the  problem  of  bringing 
the  Gospel  to  bear  more  effectively  upon  the  masses 
through  the  pastorate,  it  has  also  greatly  enhanced 
the  difficulty  of  that  solution. 

We  note,  first,  the  revolution  in  business.  The 
modern  advance    in  the  arts,    that   has  brought  and 

Revolution  in  bound  all  nations  together,  has  extended 
Business.  the  arena  on  which  the  daily  strife  of 
business  is  carried  on,  from  the  narrow  limits  of  the 
single  town  to  the  confines  of  the  world.  Out  of  this 
transaction  of  business  for  the  world,  rather  than  for 
the  village,  has  come  an  activity  proportionally  in- 
creased, and  therefore  by  so  much  the  more  intense 
and  engrossing. 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       307 

And  besides  this  immense  expansion,  there  has 
taken  place  an  entire  change  in  the  controlling  prin- 
ciple in  the  pursuit  of  wealth.  William  Cunningham, 
in  Politics  and  Economics  (lectures  delivered  in  Cam- 
bridge University,  England),  has  pointed  out  clearly 
that  three  periods  are  to  be  distinguished  in  English 
economic  history: 

1.  When  the  methods  of  pursuing  wealth  were 
determined  in  accordance   with    Christian  morality. 

2.  When  they  were  directed  in  accordance  with 
national  policy. 

3.  When  free  play  was  allowed  to  individuals  to 
pursue  the  courses  they  preferred. 

An  understanding  of  these  is  necessary  to  any 
proper  appreciation  of  the  present  business  situation 
and  problems.  The  first  was  the  medieval  method, 
when  the  Christian  doctrine  of  right  was  applied  to 
prices  of  labor  and  commodities  and  to  rates  of 
interestj  by  both  canon  and  civil  law,  and  when  labor 
was  honored  and  the  great  industrial  gilds  flourished, 
and  English  industrial  interests  were  at  the  front. 
The  second  method  came  into  vogue  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  when  the  new  continents  had  been  discovered 
and  opened  up,  the  European  nationalities  developed, 
and  national  rivalry  brought  in,  and  the  application  of 
the  Christian  doctrines  of  economics,  as  embodied  in 
canon  and  civil  law,  discredited  in  the  casting  off  of 
the  shackles  of  Romanism.  The  result  was  the 
exaltation  of  English  national  economic  interests  and 
of  great  chartered  monopolies — the  whole  system 
being  directed  against  conflicting  interests  of  foreign 
nations.  The  third,  or  laissez-faire,  method,  came  in 
with  the  changed  ideas  and  conditions  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  and  was  the  result  of   the  effort  of 


3o8     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

constitutionally  free  England  to  break  down  the  old 
monopolies  and  give  the  citizen  a  chance  once  more  in 
the  competitions  of  trade  and  industry.  During  the 
present  century  it  has  been  mainly  a  struggle  to 
restrict  the  evils  of  free  competition,  in  its  unmoral 
or  immoral  aspects,  by  law,  and  to  comprehend 
and  adjust  individual  and  public  interests  not  yet 
thoroughly  comprehended  and  adjusted. 

In  this  country,  where  we  are  just  in  the  midst  of 
this  struggle,  the  development  of  the  laissez-faire 
principle,  as  immoral,  cut-throat  competition,  has 
reached  the  extreme;  so  that,  in  the  opinion  of  many 
able  economists  and  business  men,  legitimate  business, 
on  Christian  principles,  has  become  well-nigh  impos- 
sible. Speculation  has  become  the  order  of  the  day 
in  everything.  The  road  to  wealth  is  no  longer  by 
the  old  slow  way  of  waiting  for  the  legitimate  increase 
of  demand,  or  of  adding  to  value  by  actual  change  of 
place  or  form;  but  rather,  by  forcing  a  fictitious 
demand,  by  taking  advantage  of  the  pressing  neces- 
sities of  men.  In  Wall  Street  and  *'on  change,"  and 
in  all  other  trade,  a  grand  game  is  being  played, 
involving  as  the  stake  every  staple  article  of  food  and 
clothing,  every  necessary  and  every  luxury  of  life,  and 
the  privileges  of  land,  water,  and  air.  From  the 
sudden  and  extraordinary  changes  brought  about  by 
these  speculative  operations,  there  results  a  risk  in 
the  transactions  of  the  smaller  tradesmen  that  was 
formerly  unknown.  There  is  no  escape  from  such 
risk,  for,  in  bringing  about  the  ends  of  the  specula- 
tion, combinations  are  daily  formed  that  command 
their  millions  and  control  the  price  of  everything,  and 
that  are  equally  ready  to  take  the  proceeds  of  the 
broker's   gambling    and    to    snatch   the    hard-earned 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       309 

bread  from  the  mouth  of  the  starving  poor.  Corners, 
pools,  combines,  trusts — these  are  threatening  the 
life  of  the  individual  and  the  life  of  the  nation. 

In  this  anxious  whirl,  men  of  business  have  little 
time  for  religious  intercourse  or  thought,  and  are 
almost  inaccessible  to  a  pastor. 

A   revolution   in   character   and    social    usages   has 

followed  upon  this  change  in  trade.     Sentiment  is  fast 

out2:rowino^  principle.     The  merchant  or    _      ,  ,. 

°  .  Revolution  m 

tradesman,  worried  by  the  business  of  Character  and 
the  world  and  absorbed  in  it,  has  neither  Usages, 
time  nor  disposition  to  lay  a  solid  basis  of  principle  in 
himself  or  in  the  members  of  his  household,  or  in 
those  connected  with  his  business  establishment.  It 
is  neither  easy  nor  comfortable  to  think  closely  of 
principles  when  the  life  is  so  abnormal. 

This  has  been  superficially  designated  a  day  of 
'introspection";  but  it  is  this  only  as  to  feelings,  not 
as  to  principles.  Principles  do  not  trouble  the  mass 
of  men  much.  They  have  been  in  many  cases  deeply 
overlaid  by  the  increase  of  imposing  religious  forms 
and  ceremonies,  or  forgotten  in  the  hurry  of  work 
carried  even  into  the  Church.  Rogers,  in  the  Grey- 
son  Letters,  suggests  to  his  novel-reading  niece  that  to 
save  herself  from  imbecility  from  overmuch  novel- 
reading,  she  keep  a  debtor  and  creditor  account  of 
sentimental  indulgence  and  practical  benevolence, 
with  occasional  memoranda  running  thus  : 

"  For  the  sweet  tears  I  shed  over  the  romantic  sorrows  of  Charlotte 
Devereaux  ;  sent  three  basins  of  gruel  and  a  flannel  petticoat  to  poor 
old  Molly  Brown." 

The  suggestion  might  be  happily  applied  to  much  of 
our  life,  to  bring  it  back  to  reality  and  truth  again. 


3IO       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

Busy  men  aver  that  they  have  not  time  to  think 
on  the  great  religious  and  theological  topics.  They 
protest  against  their  minister's  setting  them  to  think- 
ing, on  the  Sabbath-day.  They  are  too  weary  for 
that.  This  is  true  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean.  A 
generation  ago,  a  visitor  asked  a  noted  judge  in 
Edinburgh:  ''Who  is  the  greatest  preacher  in  your 
city?"  "Dr.  Candlish,"  was  the  answer.  ''Do  you 
attend  his  church?"  "Oh,  no!"  was  the  reply;  "I 
am  tired  when  the  Sabbath  comes,  and  do  not  want 
to  be  made  to  think.  I  go  to  hear  Dr.  Guthrie.  He 
does  not  require  me  to  think."  The  old  foundations 
of  strong  doctrine  having  thus  been  lost  out,  a  pastor 
now  too  seldom  finds,  in  the  basis  of  character,  the 
earnestness  of  the  stern  old  Puritan  by  which  to  lay 
hold  of  men  and  mold  them. 

At  the  same  time  the  rapid  changes  in  social  position 
have  introduced  new  barriers  between  pastor  and 
people.  The  changes  resulting  from  the  false  modes 
of  business  have  given  rise  to  a  mass  of  conven- 
tionalities— chiefly  as  a  fashion  in  the  uncultivated 
rising  families,  and  partly  as  a  defense  in  those  already 
occupying  the  high  places  of  society — that  clog  the 
whole  interior  and  better  life,  and  have  induced  a 
contempt  and  a  disrelish  for  honest  work,  that  tends 
to  the  destruction  of  strength  and  manliness. 

The  old-fashioned  home  of  half  a  century  ago,  with 
all  the  family  gathered  around  one  hearthstone,  is 
less  and  less  seen  in  the  mansions  of  the  opulent; 
while  the  closet  is  at  the  same  time  crowded  out  by 
the  fashion  and  the  constant  round  of  excitement.  In 
the  winter,  the  family  must  break  up  and  the  main 
part  of  it  go  South,  while  the  father  goes  to  the  hotel 
or  the  club-house;  in  the  summer,  they  must  flit  to  the 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       31I 

mountains  or  to  the  sea-side  resort  ;  between  the 
coming  and  the  going  there  are  perhaps  a  few  days  or 
weeks  of  rest,  in  what  passes  under  the  name  of  home, 
but  has  lost  its  sacredness  and  its  attractions.  Or 
perhaps  most  of  the  household  go  to  Europe  for  a  few 
years,  leaving  the  husband  and  father,  and  possibly  the 
oldest  son,  to  remain  homeless  during  that  long  period, 
and  to  carry  on  the  business  necessary  to  support  the 
extravagant  outlay.  In  the  mean  time,  there  have 
grown  up,  in  this  so-called  democratic  country,  the 
pretentious  display  and  glittering  vice  of  the  great 
demoralizing  club-houses,  and  the  supreme  sillinesses 
of  the  social  four  hundreds,  and  all  that.  In  many  of 
the  families  involved,  all  worthy  aim  in  life  is  taken 
from  the  young;  idleness  begets  imbecility,  worth- 
lessness,  and  positive  vice;  and,  with  the  increased 
temptations  of  the  day,  the  tendency  of  much  of 
the  wealthy  society  is  veering  rapidly  away  from  re- 
ligion and  downward. 

These  and  many  other  things  conspire,  in  some 
cases,  to  make  the  home  and  the  every-day  life  almost 
inaccessible  to  the  pastor;  and  perhaps,  in  most  in- 
stances, to  an  absolute  divorce  of  the  home  and  family 
from  the  Church  and  church  life,  that  places  them 
practically  beyond  the  reach  of  religion.  In  the  mean 
time  there  has  been  an  immense  influx  into  our  coun- 
try of  peoples  of  foreign  nationality,  in  which  there 
are,  to  say  the  least,  some  very  undesirable  elements, 
whose  presence  has  increased  the  hindrances  in  the 
way  of  the  pastor's  work.  These  elements  have  im- 
ported with  them  their  foreign  notions  of  morality 
and  formal  religion,  and  of  the  Sabbath  as  a  day  of 
recreation  and  amusement,  and  their  foreign  drinking 
usages  and  habits;  and  they  have  added  a  vast  mass  of 


312       CHRIST  S    TRUiMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

dense  ignorance  and  extreme  corruption  to  the  social 
body.  They  have  entered  into  business  and  social 
alliances  with  the  native-born  citizens,  and  have  be- 
come a  powerful  factor  in  shaping  public  sentiment 
in  favor  of  liberalism,  socialism,  and  anarchism. 
Whole  communities  have  thus  been  foreignized,  and 
brought  into  open  opposition  to  all  that  is  best  in  our 
Christian  civilization.  As  some  of  these  people  are 
very  thrifty  in  a  business  way,  they  have  been  able  to 
set  up  new  social  barriers  in  the  way  of  the  approach 
of  any  evangelical  minister,  and  have  thus  made  them- 
selves practically  inaccessible  to  such.  Almost  every 
community  has,  in  these  various  ways,  come  to  have 
a  dead  weight  of  irreligion  and  immorality  (perhaps 
glossed  over),  and  of  more  or  less  open  infidelity, 
resting  upon  it,  and  the  difficulty  of  the  work  of  the 
pastor  has  been  greatly  increased  thereby. 

There  has  taken  place  a  corresponding  change  in 
the  methods  of  Christian  work.  We  have  a  vivid 
Changed  Chris-  recollection  of  the  impression  made  upon 
tian  Methods,  us,  several  years  since,  relative  to  this 
very  subject  of  the  work  of  the  Church,  by  that 
admirable  little  book  of  Dr.  Fish,  Primitive  Piety 
Revived.  The  want  of  **  individualism  "  was  set  forth 
as  one  of  the  great  wants  of  the  piety  of  the  age. 
But  if  that  could  have  been  written  then,  how  much 
more  now,  when  our  labor-saving  machinery  in  the 
Church  has  become  as  perfect  as  that  in  the  factory 
or  on  the  farm  !  The  conversion  of  the  world  is 
rightly  our  great  work.  But  how  often,  alas  !  is  the 
little  work  of  the  individual  lost  in  this  complicated 
machinery.  Organizations  have  an  indispensable 
place.  It  is  not,  however,  to  supersede,  but  to  evoke 
and  systemize,  the  Christian  work  of  individual  men; 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE   TIMES.       313 

not  as  a  substitute  for  personal  effort,  but  as  the  in- 
struments for  insuring  it  and  rendering  it  effective. 
It  is  too  much  the  case  that  everything  can  be  done  by 
machinery  and  by  proxy  now.  There  is  some  way  by 
which  every  one  can  give  his  money  and  withhold  his 
personal  presence  and  effort,  while  securing  a  substi- 
tute to  carry  on  the  work  of  every  department  of 
moral  reform,  Christian  philanthropy,  and  religious 
instruction.  The  children  of  the  family  are  to  be 
taught.  They  can  be  turned  over  to  the  Sunday- 
school.  The  masses  outside  of  the  Church  are  to  be 
looked  after  and  saved.  That  can  be  given  over  to 
the  mission-school  and  hired  missionary.  The  Church 
of  God  is  to  be  built  up.  That  work  is  safe  in  the 
hands  of  the  pastor.  The  tide  of  vice  in  the  com- 
munity is  to  be  stayed.  Instead  of  having  the  trouble 
of  going  to  the  victims,  and  by  personal  Christian 
kindliness  lifting  them  up  and  saving  them,  and  then 
by  personal  influence  and  example  elevating  the  tone 
of  society  till  it  shall  be  an  efficient  aid  in  this  work, 
the  power  of  legislation  rather  is  relied  upon,  and  the 
whole  matter  turned  over  to  the  civil  government,  to 
legislate  the  moral  evil  out  of  existence,  and  the  indi- 
vidual Christian  conscience  into  quiet  sleep.  All  this 
change  in  the  method  of  the  work  has  put  the  individual 
further  from  the  reach  of  pastoral  effort. 

While  these  changes  have  been  taking  place,  there 
has   arisen   an    increased    demand    upon    the    pulpit. 
Perhaps  this  may  not  be  owing  to  greater    increased  De- 
intelligence  and  culture  in  some  of  the    mandonthe 
hearers;   but  rather  to  the  general  dif-        Pulpit, 
fusion  of  the  Bible  and  religious  literature,  and  of  in- 
formation on  all  subjects.      When  the  Pilgrim  Fathers 
came  to  this  country,  the  first  English  translation  of 


314      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

the  Bible  (Coverdale's)  had  been  read  only  eighty-five 
years,  and  King  James's  version  had  been  published 
but  nine  years,  and  had  not  been  much  used  as  yet. 
Every  child  had  not  a  Bible  then,  as  he  has  now. 
What  was  acceptable  and  edifying  to  the  men  of  that 
age,  as  dispensed  from  the  pulpit,  may  be  common- 
place and  unimportant  now,  even  to  the  child.  This 
increased  demand  upon  the  preacher  has  rendered 
it  more  difficult  to  meet  the  requirements  made  of 
the  pastor,  by  so  much  abridging  the  time  at  his 
command. 

II.   Popular  Methods  of  Meeting  the  Changes. 

With  this  glance  at  some  of  the  altered  circum- 
stances of  the  age,  that  most  seriously  affect  the  pas- 
toral work,  we  turn  to  inquire  briefly.  What  has  been 
done  toward  the  adjustment  of  the  energies  of  the 
pastorate  to  these  changed  conditions? 

It  is  hard  to  divest  oneself  of  the  conviction  that 
much  remains  to  be  done  in  this  direction,  both  in  the 
task  of  formulating  the  law  of  the  pastorate,  and  in 
making  the  proper  adjustment  of  it  to  present  condi- 
tions. Touching  the  twofold  work  of  the  minister, 
as  preacher  and  pastor,  we  have  had  our  '*  homiletics" 
and  ''pastoral  theology";  but  in  the  old  treatment 
of  the  subjects  involved  in  them,  while  the  sphere  of 
the  pulpit  is  plainly  and  adequately  defined,  the  scope 
of  the  pastorate  is  not  so  clearly  determined.  There 
are  certain  duties  somehow  connected  with  the  twofold 
work — and  all-important  duties  they  are  in  this  day — 
which  the  authors  have  not  seemed  to  know  exactly 
how  to  deal  with,  or  to  which  part  to  assign  them, 
even  when  conscious  of  their  existence. 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       315 

Almost  thirty  years  ago,  Dr.  Horace  Bushnell,  in 
an  address  before  the  Porter  Rhetorical  Society  of 
Andover  Theological  Seminary,  on  *'  Pul-  Administrative 
pit  Talent,"  brought  forward  and  empha-  Talent, 
sized  one  of  these  duties — that  of  admmistration — in 
making  "  administrative  or  organizing  capacity"  one 
of  his  "preaching  talents."  He  evidently  did  it 
with  hesitancy,  altho  he  said  not.  In  the  ordinary 
schemes  there  was  no  place  assigned  for  any  such 
talent;  perhaps  the  ordinary  definitions  excluded  it. 
That  address  appeared  to  be  the  first  revelation  of  it 
to  many.  Dr.  Shedd,  while  showing  in  his  work  on 
Hotiiiletical  and  Pastoral  Theology — from  his  point  of 
view  so  admirable — that  he  was  conscious  of  the  exist- 
ence of  such  a  side  to  pastoral  work,  was  content  to 
say,  in  his  definition,  that  the  office  of  a  pastor  "is  to 
give  private  and  personal  advice  from  house  to  house 
and  to  make  his  influence  felt  in  the  social  and  domes- 
tic life  of  his  congregation";  and  then,  in  his  further 
development  of  the  subject,  to  recognize  the  negative 
and  subjective  side  of  this  work  of  administration  by 
making  "decision"  one  of  the  necessary  qualities  of 
the  pastor's  character  in  his  relation  to  the  Church. 
This  point,  like  many  others,  seems  to  have  been  only 
gradually  working  its  way  into  the  teaching-conscious- 
ness of  the  Church.  Now  we  do  not,  either  in  Chris- 
tian doctrine  or  in  the  law  of  the  pastorate,  believe  in 
any  change  by  way  of  improvement  upon  God's  Word; 
but  we  do  believe  in  change,  by  way  of  development 
and  growth  in  knowledge,  and  by  way  of  adaptation  to 
the  varying  wants  and  characters  of  men.  Were  we  to 
venture  a  criticism  upon  the  old  view  of  this  subject, 
it  would  be  that  it  failed  to  take  into  account  the 
necessity  and  fact  of  change  by  way  of  adaptation  to 


3i6     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

the  changing  circumstances  of  living  men,  so  that  it 
sent  the  pastor  to  the  oversight  of  an  abstract  man 
(perhaps  it  should  be  said  a  student),  just  as  it  often 
sent  the  preacher  to  preach  to  an  abstract  sinner. 

It  is  sufficiently  obvious  that,  in  some  quarters,  the 
changed  condition  of  things,  to  which  attention  has 
just  been  called,  has  not  been  noted  at  all.  When  it  is 
reported,  for  example,  that  the  additions  in  membership 
to  one  large  branch  of  the  Church,  for  a  certain  year, 
were  all  in  one-half  the  churches  in  that  denomination, 
the  information  is  sadly  significant.  In  other  quarters, 
the  revolution  spoken  of  has  been  marked  and  taken 
into  account,  and  has  led  to  various  experiments  by 
way  of  remedy,  sometimes  in  apparent  ignorance  or 
neglect  of  the  great  Divine  principles  that  should  gov- 
ern all  Christian  work.  It  falls  in  with  the  present 
purpose  briefly  to  notice  some  of  these  experiments. 

Men  of  one  class  have  sought  to  increase  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  pastorate  by  grasping  after  larger  per- 
1.  By  Descending  ^^"^^  influence,  through  letting  them- 
to  the  Level  of    selves  down  to  the  level  of  the  world  and 

the  World.  j^g  demands.  Reference  is  not  to  men 
of  the  stripe  of  ''Rev.  Joseph  Bellamy  Stoker"  of 
Holmes,  or  "Parson  Stiggins  "  of  Dickens;  for  we 
believe  that  such  rarely  exist,  save  in  the  imagination 
of  men  who  know  but  little  of  the  character  of  an 
evangelical  ministry,  or  who  have  learned  to  despise 
all  that  was  noble  in  their  own  ancestry.  But  there 
has  been  among  the  younger  clergy,  in  some  instances, 
a  reckless  grasping  after  popularity,  at  the  expense  of 
Christian  character  and  influence,  truly  alarming.  In 
the  pulpit,  or  out  among  the  people,  they  are  ready  to 
bring  to  market  just  the  wares  for  which  there  is  the 
most  ready  sale — extravagant  story  and  theatrical  ges- 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES,       317 

ture  for  the  Sabbath  and  the  sacred  desk;  vulgar  famil- 
iarity and  shameless  jest  for  the  week-day  and  the 
home.  We  have  known  the  same  man  to  startle  an 
audience  on  the  Sabbath  by  shouting  from  the  pulpit: 
*'The  motto  of  the  world  is,  every  man  for  himself, 
and  the  devil  take  the  hindermost  !"  and  then,  on  the 
week-day,  to  confirm  his  right  to  the  character  thus 
won,  by  securing  the  setting  up  of  a  billiard-table  in 
the  rooms  of  a  Christian  organization. 

Now,  putting  the  best  construction  possible  upon 
such  conduct,  the  course  taken  must  be  pronounced  a 
ruinous  blunder;  for,  in  attaining  the  notoriety  that 
such  a  method  brings,  the  man  casts  away  all  religious 
power  among  the  people  by  forfeiting  all  claim  to  their 
respect.  In  the  cases  of  this  kind  that  have  come 
under  our  observation, — and  they  have  been  some- 
what numerous, — the  next  step  has  been  an  open 
breach  with  evangelical  Christianity  and  a  quick  pas- 
sage to  the  ranks  of  infidelity. 

Men  of  another  class  have  attempted  to  bring  the 
whirl  of  the  world,  with  the  secular  spirit,   into  the 
Church,  and  to  restore  the  power  of  the  „  ByBrinffine 
Church  over  the  world  by  making  con-   the  World  into 
cessions  to  the  world  and  conforming  to      tneChurcn. 
it.     The  amusement  question,  that  has  been  so  much 
under  discussion  in  some  quarters,  had  its  origin,  in  its 
connection  with  the  Church,  in  the  time-serving,  world- 
serving  spirit  of  this  class  of  men.     The  leaven  is  to 
be  put  into  the  lump;  card-playing  and  billiard-playing 
are  to  be  sanctified;  Paul's  rule  of  refraining  from  eat- 
ing meat,  when   it  makes  a  brother  to  stumble,  is  to 
give  way  to  Christian  'Miberty,"  so  called.     We  have 
heard  men  in  high   places  favor  the  establishment  of 
religious  club  rooms,  with  all  the  approved  appliances 


3i8     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

of  a  club  room,  for  reclaiming  the  young  men  of  our 
cities  and  furnishing  them  society!  Articles  advo- 
cating these  things,  having  not  even  the  poor  merit  of 
ability  to  atone  for  their  error,  have  filled  the  secular 
journals,  and  have  even  been  admitted  to  places  in 
leading  religious  papers.  Be  it  recorded  to  the  honor 
of  the  Christian  young  men  of  the  country  that,  when, 
more  than  twenty-five  years  ago,  the  matter  came  to  be 
pressed  upon  their  attention  at  the  national  conven- 
tion held  at  Montreal,  they  emphatically  pronounced 
against  all  complicity  with  such  time-serving  schemes. 

This  is  but  one  of  the  ways  in  which  men  of  the 
spirit  here  deprecated  have  set  about  their  work  of 
secularizing  the  Church.  More  recently  it  has  been 
seriously  proposed,  by  a  prominent  city  clergyman,  to 
found  saloons,  under  church  control,  for  the  saving  of 
young  men!  It  is  self-evident  that  all  such  schemes 
must  be  futile,  as  they  can  only  result  in  worldliness, 
or  in  worldly  power,  if  in  any  power  at  all. 

Men  of  still  another  class  have  sought  to  devise 
new  methods  of  Christian  work   to  meet  the  obvious 

By  Devising  wants  of  the  day.  These  have  been  put 
New  Methods,  in  the  place  of  the  simple  and  divinely 
ordained  method  of  the  Church.  In  some  regions 
the  aim  has  been  to  introduce  some  popular  service  in 
the  place  of  the  second  preaching  service.  Organiza- 
tion upon  organization  has  been  added  to  the  regular 
church  machinery,  to  make  it  equal  to  its  mission. 
We  knew  of  one  pastor  who  organized  the  young 
members  of  his  congregation  into  what  a  good  mother 
in  Israel  called  a  ''singing-gang,"  and  sent  them  out 
to  spend  the  Sabbath  afternoons  in  singing  to  the  sick 
people  of  the  parish.  It  was  somewhat  barren  of 
spiritual   fruits,  but  resulted  in  as  many  weddings  as 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       319 

there  were  couples  in  the  **  singing-gang."  It  seems 
indeed  to  have  been  almost  forgotten  in  many  quarters, 
that  all  the  methods  given  by  God  to  the  Church  are 
none  the  less  perfect  and  adequate  because  of  their 
simplicity,  so  that  nothing  needs  to  be  added  to  them. 

But  the  innumerable  conventions  and  conferences, 
and  the  much  discussion,  have  shown  that  the  Church 
at  large  is  conscious  of  not  having  reached  the  right 
method  of  adjustment,  while  at  the  same  time  it  has 
come  to  realize  in  some  degree  the  increased  difficulty 
in  reaching  men,  and  the  real  lack  of  efficiency  and 
adequacy  in  the  work  of  the  pastorate,  as  it  is  now 
understood  and  wrought.  It  sees  that  things  are 
going  wrong,  but  it  has  not  yet  hit  upon  a  remedy; 
hence  the  protracted  discussion  grows  in  interest  and 
earnestness.  And  it  must  be  noted,  by  the  way,  that 
such  discussion,  while  it  is  the  harbinger  of  coming 
progress,  is  at  the  same  time  an  indispensable  condi- 
tion to  such  progress.  Every  generation — we  might 
with  truth  say,  every  man — must  discuss  and  solve 
each  practical,  moral,  and  social  problem  for  itself,  be- 
fore the  truth  involved  in  it  can  find  a  place  of  power 
in  the  consciousness  and  hearts  of  men.  The  ministry 
shoufd,  therefore,  always  hail  the  agitation  of  such  a 
subject  as  an  ally  in  the  work  of  God. 

Meanwhile,  for  the  pastor  to  go  on  his  course  in 
the  way  the  fathers  went,  ignoring  or  giving  no  heed 
to  all  such  recurring  agitation  growing  out  of  chang- 
ing circumstances,  were  as  unwise  as  for  the  military 
man  to  cling  to  his  old-fashioned  guns  and  his  wooden 
ships,  regardless  of  the  revolution  wrought  by  earth- 
works and  steel  armored  cruisers.  And  hence,  by 
just  so  much  as  any  one  interested  in  the  results  of 
such  movement  delays  to  enter  into  it,  and  make  the 


320      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

requisite  investigation  of  principles  and  adjustment  of 
forces,  he  suffers  serious  loss.  What  needs  to  be 
done  should  be  done  at  the  earliest  possible  moment. 
The  ministry,  the  Church,  should  certainly  meet  the 
situation  fairly,  and  if  we  find  ourselves,  our  prin- 
ciples, or  our  methods,  at  fault,  in  directing  the  forces 
ordained  of  God  for  the  work  of  the  Church,  neither 
pride  of  consistency  nor  love  of  conservatism  should 
be  allowed  to  prevent  us  from  righting  whatever  is 
found  wrong. 

SECTION  SECOND. 
The  Requisites  to  the  Increased  Efficiency  Demanded. 

This  preliminary  discussion  has  prepared  for  the 
treatment  of  the  practical  question,  What  is  to  be  done 
to  bring  the  pastorate^  in  efficiency ^  up  to  the  requirements  of 
the  times  ? 

Its  shortcomings  in  efficiency  or  adequacy  may  re- 
sult either  from  the  departure  of  the  Church  from  the 
Divine  law  laid  down  for  the  guidance  of  the  work;  or 
from  failure,  on  the  part  of  the  one  who  holds  the 
office  of  pastor,  to  come  up  to  the  demands  of  his 
position.  The  subject  at  this  point,  therefore,  natu- 
rally falls  into  two  parts:  first,  the  Divine  law  of  the 
pastorate,  and  then,  the  pastor  for  the  place  and  age. 

I.   The  Divine  Law  of  the  Pastorate,  and  how 
Observed. 

The  Divine  law  of  the  pastorate  must  first  be  clearly 
defined  and  affirmed.  The  place  must  be  considered, 
first,  to  prepare  for  ascertaining  the  qualities  that  fit 
the  man  for  the  place.     In  order  to  reach  any  satis- 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       32I 

factory  view  on  this  subject,  it  is  obviously  a  first 
necessity  that  there  should  be  a  return  to  the  Biblical 
idea  of  the  Church  as  '*  the  body  of  Christ,"  and  to 
learn  from  this  its  organization  and  work,  for  on  this 
wise  cnlycan  the  place  of  the  pastorate,  in  its  relation 
to  the  whole,  be  ascertained.  The  only  right  mode  of 
procedure  is  to  ascertain,  first,  what  the  office  is,  and 
then  make  the  definition  to  suit;  not,  as  is  so  often 
done,  to  construct  first  the  definition;  and  then  warp 
or  dwarf  the  thing  to  suit  it. 

There  are  three  commonly  received  propositions  in 
this  connection  that  are  held  to  be  fundamental: 

1.  In  the  Church  of  Christ,  in  the  en-   „,       „     , 

'  Three  Funda- 

tire   membership,   are    to  be  found    the  mental  Proposi- 
human  energies  that  are  to  be  directed         tions. 
to  the  accomplishment  of  Christ's  work  of  salvation  in 
the  world. 

2.  The    prerogative    and   duty   of  directing    these- 
energies    inheres    in    that    Church   in   its   organized 
capacity. 

3.  The  pastorate  holds,  under  Christ,  the  chief  place 
in  that  work  of  direction. 

These  three  propositions,  while  they  mark  off  the 
sphere  and  authority  of  the  pastorate,  furnish,  it  is 
believed,  at  the  same  time,  the  logical  and  Scriptural 
basis  on  which  the  Church  is  to  build. 

(I)  The  Energies  in  the  Membership. 

In  the  Church  of  Christ,  in  its  entire  membership, 
are  to  be  found  the  human  energies  which  are  to  be 
directed  to  the  accomplishment  of  Christ's  work  in  the 
world.  ' 

In  opening  this  discussion,  the   place  of  the  Spirit 


322       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY, 

of  God  is,  of  course,  to  be  carefully  guarded.  The 
preaching  of  the  word  of  Christ  and  work  for  Christ, 
both  attended  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  are  the  two  great 
instrumentalities  in  the  extension  of  Christ's  kingdom, 
and  without  the  Holy  Ghost  the  work  is  as  worthless 
as  the  preaching  is  ineffectual.  But,  under  the  Spirit, 
the  working  element  is  to  be  found  in  the  Church  of 
Christ,  and  takes  in  the  entirety  of  its  membership. 

And  by  this  it  is  meant  to  include  the  two  aspects 
of  the  truth:  that  each  member  of  the  Church  is  a 
worker  sent  of  Christ  on  a  special  mission,  and  that 
all  the  members  in  their  united  capacity  are  coworkers 
with  Christ.  Individual  effort  and  combined  effort  are 
the  two  sides  of  the  law  that  governs  all  the  work  of 
the  universe.  The  illimitable  forests  that  cover  the 
hills  like  the  shadow  of  God  have  been  built  by  the 
combined  work  of  the  single  leaves;  the  mighty  tides 
that  gird  the  globe  are  but  the  sum  of  the  flow  of  the 
single  drops;  the  tempests  that  sweep  over  the  earth 
with  resistless  force  only  combine  the  momentum  of 
single  particles  of  the  viewless  air;  the  force  of  gravi- 
tation that  hurls  the  innumerable  starry  train  along 
with  such  fearful  velocity  only  sums  up  the  power  of 
the  single  atoms,  each  of  which  pulls  for  itself.  In 
precisely  the  same  way,  the  vast  work  of  the  Church 
in  bringing  the  world  back  to  God,  is  only  the  sum  of 
single  efforts,  the  combined  work  of  single  Christians. 
The  whole  frame-work  of  Christianity  presupposes 
this  twofold  principle.  The  mission  and  structure 
of  the  Church  embody  it.  The  history  of  the  early 
Christian  converts  conspicuously  exhibited  its  practi- 
cal working. 

Paul,  in  his  Epistles,  takes  special   pains  to  present 
and  enforce  both  its  aspects,      A  ''manifestation  of 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       323 

the  Spirit  is  given  to  every  man  for  the  profit"  of  the 
Church  and  the  world.*  This  is  one  aspect.  It  con- 
templates man  as  an  individual.  As  .each  man  is  to 
repent  for  himself,  believe  for  himself,  live  for  him- 
self, and  die  and  give  an  account  for  himself;  so  the 
Holy  Ghost  gives  each  man  a  gift  peculiar  to  himself, 
and  assigns  to  him  a  place  and  work  suited  to  himself, 
in  carrying  on  the  great  work  of  the  Church  for  the 
salvation  of  a  lost  world. 

Paul  exhibits,  by  the  relation  of  the  parts  of  the 
body  to  the  whole,  the  relation  of  the  work  of  each 
man  to  the  whole  work  of  the  Church,  f  This  is  the 
other  aspect.  God  has  so  arranged  the  parts  of  the 
human  body  as  to  constitute  one  living  organic  whole, 
in  which  harmonious  cooperation  is  added  to  the 
action  of  the  individual  parts.  If  any  one  part  refuses 
to  perform  its  office, — if  the  eye  refuses  to  see,  or  the 
ear  to  hear,  or  the  hand  to  work  at  the  bidding  of  the 
soul, — the  power  and  completeness  of  the  body  are 
destroyed  and  its  mission  made  a  failure.  Just  so 
God  has  fixed  the  position  and  gifts  of  every  member 
of  Christ's  body,  the  Church, — the  endowments  being 
as  various  as  the  places, — and  the  harmonious  co- 
operation of  all  in  their  places  is  as  essential  in  the 
Church  as  the  united  working  of  the  eye,  the  ear,  and 
the  hand,  in  their  places  in  the  human  frame. 

The  Church  is  thus  to  be  regarded  as  a  great  work- 
ing institution,  in  which  each  member  is  to  be  a  work- 
man for  God,  with  the  ability  given  him  in  his  own 
appointed  place;  and  in  which  all  together  are  to  be 
regarded  as  cooperating  in  carrying  out  the  one  plan 
of  God.  This  is  the  divine  law  of  the  work  of  the 
Church,  and  here  are  to  be  found,  in  the  individual 
*  I  Cor.  xii.  8.  f  I  Cor.  xii.  12-27. 


324     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

members  and  their  gifts  from  the  Holy  Spirit,  the 
energies  that  are  to  be  directed  to  the  accomplishment 
of  Christ's  designs  in  the  world. 

(II)  The  Authority  in  the  Organized  Church. 

Believing  that  this  needs  little  more  than  to  be 
stated  fully  and  clearly,  to  gain  admission,  we  pass  to 
the  second  proposition:  that  the  prerogative  and 
duty  of  directing  its  own  energies  in  its  work  inhere 
in  the  Church  in  its  organized  capacity.  All  forms  of 
Church  government  imply  this,  at  least  to  the  extent 
to  which  it  is  here  desirable  to  affirm  it.  All  churches 
assume  it  as  fundamental.  Christ  has  organized  and 
endowed  the  Church  for  this  mission.  It  has  this  right 
in  virtue  of  Christ  indwelling. 

There  are  three  conceivable  ways  of  proceeding  in 
all  our  Christian  work  :  first^  that  by  independent 
individual  effort  ;  secondly^  that  by  voluntary  organized 
effort  ;  thirdly^  that  by  organized  Church  effort. 

The  first  method — that  by  independent  individual 
effort — has  the  advantage  of  simplicity.  Its  doctrine 
is  :  '*  Let  every  man  work  with  his  might  in  his  own 
sphere.  God  deals  with  men,  not  in  the  mass,  but  as 
single  souls.  They  are  regenerated,  sanctified,  and 
saved,  as  individuals.  Every  man  whom  God  saves, 
he  saves  and  sends  forth  to  work  for  him  in  the  world. 
All  power  must,  in  the  last  analysis,  be  resolved  into 
individual  power — the  power  of  gravitation  into  the 
pull  of  the  single  atoms  ;  the  power  of  the  Church  into 
the  energies  of  its  separate  members.  Let  every  man 
labor  for  Christ,  to  the  extent  of  his  ability,  in  his 
place,  and  the  work  will  go  forward.  It  requires  no 
officers,  no  cumbrous  machinery." 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       325 

Now  this  method  has  a  most  important  truth  at  its 
foundation,  one  of  the  truths  embraced  in  our  first 
proposition,  but  not  both.  It  is  certainly  a  great  ad- 
vantage to  have  a  simple  way  of  doing  our  work;  but 
just  as  certainly  there  are  things  that  men,  as  indi- 
viduals and  working  alone,  can  not  accomplish.  Some- 
times the  power  of  many  individuals  needs  to  be 
gathered  up  and  directed  to  one  end,  in  order  to  do 
what  must  be  done.  We  must  have  all  the  individual 
effort;  but,  in  addition  to  that,  we  must  have  organ- 
ized effort  too. 

The  second  method — that  of  voluntary  organization 
— has  been  proposed  to  meet  this  necessity.  The 
doctrine  is  :  *'  Let  those,  who  choose  to  do  it,  combine 
together  voluntarily  for  that  purpose,  devise  their 
plans,  and  prepare  their  machinery  for  carrying  out 
those  plans.  Union  is  strength.  Together  men  can 
accomplish  what,  working  singly,  is  beyond  far  their 
power  to  compass." 

This  method  has  the  advantage  over  the  other  of 
organizing  effort,  of  combining  the  single  and  sepa- 
rate; and  it  takes  into  account  both  sides  of  the  truth 
of  our  first  proposition.  But  theoretically  it  involves 
a  fatal  error,  in  departing  from  the  truth  of  our  second 
proposition.  It  assumes  that  it  is  not  the  duty  and 
prerogative  of  the  Church,  as  organized  by  Christ,  to 
direct  its  own  energies  in  its  appointed  work.  It 
assumes  that  the  Church,  to  which  Christ  has  given 
the  mission  of  saving  the  world,  is  not  fitted  for  its 
work,  or  is  not  equal  to  it,  and  that  man  can  devise 
some  better  way  of  doing  God's  work.  Practically,  it 
is  against  economy,  against  unity,  dangerous  in  its 
tendencies,  and  must  prove  a  failure  ;  against  economy^ 
for  it  introduces  a  new  set  of  machinery,  and  every 


326     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

new  set  requires  so  much  the  more  power  in  managing 
it;  against  unity\  for  it  divides  the  energies  of  the 
Church,  and  weakens  it  by  so  much  disorganizing  in 
organizing  ;  dangerous  in  its  tendencies,  for  it  is  irre- 
sponsible in  its  direction  and  control,  and  must  fail 
at  last,  for  nothing  can  succeed  that  is  not  done  in 
Christ's  appointed  way. 

The  third  niethod^t\vdX  of  organized  Church  effort — 
is  believed  to  be  the  Scriptural  method,  and  the  one 
applicable  in  all  ordinary  work.  It  was  to  the  Church 
as  organized  by  Christ  that  the  Great  Commission,  to 
preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature,  was  given,  and, 
with  that  commission,  there  was  conferred  upon  it  the 
authority  to  devise  all  the  plans,  and  to  invent  all  the 
mechanism  and  direct  all  the  power  required  in  its 
execution. 

It  can  not  be  denied  that  this  way  has  the  advantage 
of  simplicity.  It  does  not  divide  the  energies  of  the 
Church;  but,  recognizing  the  fact  that  its  work  is  one, 
it  unites  and  concentrates  all  its  power.  Moreover,  it 
keeps  everything  out  of  irresponsible  hands,  by  giving 
the  control  to  those  whom  Christ,  in  and  through  the 
Church,  calls  to  the  positions  of  authority,  and  who  are 
directly  subject  to  the  Church  and  responsible  to  it. 
More  than  all,  it  is  willing  to  accept  Christ's  way  as 
the  best  way,  tho  it  be  an  old  and  plain  way.  It  has 
thus  all  the  advantages  of  unity  and  concentration, 
simplicity  and  directness,  organization  and  respon- 
sibility, scripturalness  and  the  consequent  divine 
approval. 

We  hold  it,  therefore,  to  be  fundamental,  vital  truth, 
that  it  is  at  once  the  prerogative  and  the  duty  of  the 
Church,  as  constituted  of  Christ,  to  direct  its  own 
energies  in  its  appointed  work. 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       327 


(III)  The  Pastor  in  the  Leadership. 

Our  third  proposition  is  that  the  pastorate  holds, 
under  Christ,  the  chief  place  in  the  direction  of  the 
energies  of  the  Church  in  its  mission. 

The  pastor  is  properly  at  the  head  of  the  directing 
element,  whatever  it  may  be.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted 
that  this  is  in  accordance  with  the  teaching  of  the 
Scriptures.  Christ's  words  to  Peter,  when  he  restored 
him  after  his  fall,  were  :  ''Feed  my  sheep";  ''Feed 
my  lambs";  "Shepherd  my  sheep."*  These  words 
unfold  the  work  for  the  old  and  the  young,  and  add  to 
instruction  the  office  of  guarding,  directing,  in  short, 
whatever  is  included  in  "  shepherding  "  the  sheep.  In 
his  charge  to  the  elders  at  Ephesus,  Paul  exhorts  them 
to  "  take  heed  to  all  the  flock,  over  which  the  Holy 
Ghost  hath  made  you  overseers."f  Christ  is  the  shep- 
herd and  bishop  of  our  souls.  Under  him,  the  minister 
is  the  under-shepherd  and  bishop;  as  Christ's  repre- 
sentative, the  head  of  the  particular  Church  over  which 
God  places  him.  This  has  been  substantially  the 
working-theory  of  all  the  branches  of  the  evangelical 
Church  in  this  country.  Methodism  assumed  this  as 
the  basis,  and  doubtless  owes  much  of  its  efficiency  in 
the  past  to  its  rigid  adherence  to  it.  The  Protestant 
Episcopal  body,  altho  adhering  to  what  Dr.  Samuel 
Hanson  Cox  once  characterized  as  "  the  doctrine  of  the 
threefold  disorder  of  the  clergy,"  and  even  when  mani- 
festing a  hierarchical  bent,  has  always  given  to  the 
ministry  the  chief  place  in  the  direction  of  the  ener- 
gies of  the  Church  in  the  work  of  Christ.  Congrega- 
tionalism in  this  country,  tho  starting  from  another 

*  John  xxi.  15-18.  f  Acts  xx.  28. 


328     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

theory  in  the  abstract,  has  been  compelled,  in  its 
actual  working,  to  come  to  the  basis  so  well  expressed 
in  the  Saybrook  Platform,  which  reads  thus,  on  this 
point  :  "We  agree  that  the  ministerial  office  is  insti- 
tuted by  Jesus  Christ  for  the  gathering,  guiding,  edi- 
fying, and  governing  of  his  Church  ;  and  continue  to 
the  end  of  the  world."  The  Presbyterian  Church 
gives  no  uncertain  sound,  as  it  makes  the  pastor  the 
head  of  the  session,  which  is  over  the  church  and 
everything  in  it,  from  the  choir  to  the  Sabbath-school. 
Our  third  proposition,  may,  therefore,  be  taken  to 
accord  at  once  with  the  Scriptures  and  with  the  gen- 
eral views  of  the  evangelical  churches. 

(IV)  Failure  to  Conform  to  the  Divine  Law. 

If  these  three  fundamental  propositions  are  true,  it 
must  be  evident  that  departure  from  any  one  of  them 
must  destroy  or  impair  the  efficiency  of  the  pastorate, 
while  it  must  also  cripple  the  work  of  the  Church.  If, 
in  the  estimation  of  Christians,  the  mission  of  the 
Church,  and  every  member  in  it,  is  not  one  of  earnest 
work  for  Christ  ;  then  there  is  a  lack  of  the  full  ener- 
gies for  the  Church  to  direct.  If  it  be  not  considered 
the  prerogative  and  duty  of  the  Church,  as  organized 
by  its  great  head,  to  direct  those  energies  in  the  work; 
then  they  are,  to  say  the  least,  out  of  the  reach  of  the 
pastorate.  If  the  chief  place  in  directing  be  not 
accorded  to  the  pastorate,  aided  by  other  office-bear- 
ers; then  the  pastor  at  once  sinks  to  the  level  of  any 
private  member,  and  there  is  no  one  in  the  Church 
who  embodies  the  idea  of  unity  that  is  so  essential  to 
success. 

But  to  turn  from  what  should  be  to  what  has  been, 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       329 

from  theory  to  practise — too  often  the  Church  has  not 
conformed  to  this  Scriptural  theory,  and  failure  or  in- 
efficiency has,  therefore,  been  the  too  common  result. 

Practically,  the  majority  of  the  churches  do  not 
hold  by  our  first  proposition.  The  Church  is  looked 
upon  too  exclusively  as  a  great  ark,  in  First  Principle 
which  men  are  to  be  borne  safely  to  Neglected, 
heaven;  and  too  little  as  a  body  of  workmen,  sent  to 
use  all  its  energies  for  the  spread  and  prevalence  of  the 
Gospel.  We  see  no  reason  why  a  church  of  many 
hundred  members,  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
conscious  of  their  commission,  should  not  to-day,  with 
the  grander  facilities  for  work  and  influence,  make 
themselves  felt  in  the  world  even  more  powerfully 
than  did  those  hundreds  who  went  forth  on  that  first 
mission  for  Christ;  yet  who  does  not  know  many  a 
a  church  with  such  a  membership  that  scarcely  holds 
its  own  from  year  to  year?  The  elders,  deacons,  and 
private  members  practically  all  unite  in  saying:  "We 
have  nothing  to  do,  and  will  do  nothing";  and  there 
are  therefore  no  living  energies  to  be  directed. 

Practically  there  has  also  been  a  wide  departure 
from  the  truth  of  our  second  proposition.  The  Church, 
as  organized  of  Christ  and  fitted  for  the  second Princi- 
work  of  directing  its  own  energies  in  his  pie  Disregarded, 
work,  and  gifted  with  the  prerogative  and  duty  of  di- 
recting them,  has  been  very  largely  denied  its  place  in 
practise,  or  has  failed  to  come  up  to  its  duty.  The 
great  number  of  voluntary  organizations  existing  for 
the  purpose  of  doing  the  work  that  God  has  made  the 
special  duty  of  the  Church — which  often  aim  to  control 
the  Church  rather  than  to  be  controlled  by  it,  and 
which  are  wholly  beyond  the  reach  of  the  divinely 
given  government  of  the  Church — is  proof  in  point. 


330     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

It  is  freely  admitted  that  such  organizations  have 
had  their  origin  in  the  failure  of  the  Church  to  do  its 
work,  or  sometimes  even  in  its  refusal;  and  that  they 
have  been  devised  by  earnest  mSn  in  the  Church,  under 
the  apparent  pressure  of  necessity;  and  we  insist  that 
the  Church,  in  allowing  its  work  to  call  for  any  such 
new  methods,  is  guilty  before  God.  But  it  is  true, 
nevertheless,  that  there  is  a  better  way  of  remedying 
the  evil;  for,  while  it  is  admitted  that  organization  is 
invaluable,  since  two  working  together  can  accomplish 
more  than  twice  what  each  one  could  if  working  alone, 
yet  it  can  hardly  be  disputed  that  the  same  energy,  in 
the  Church  and  working  in  Christ's  appointed  way,  will 
do  more  than  working  in  any  way  that  man  can  possibly 
devise.  Where  collision  and  conflict  have  not  resulted 
from  the  voluntary  and  divisive  course,  the  life  has 
either  been  drained  from  the  Church,  or  its  energies 
divided,  and  the  elements  of  power  God  has  given  it 
for  his  glory  practically  placed  beyond  its  reach. 

But  even  where  the  first  two  principles  have  been 

acknowledged,  that  involved  in  the  third  proposition 

Third  Princi-    has  too   often   been  ignored  or  denied. 

pie  Ignored.  The  pastor  is  widely  looked  upon  too 
much  as  a  hireling  of  the  people.  With  many  dis- 
posed to  give  him  a  higher  place,  he  is  still  merely  a 
member  of  an  honorable  profession.  Many  who  honor 
him  still  more,  confine  the  sphere  of  the  pastorate  to 
the  narrow  limit  of  ministering  to  the  sick  and  afflicted, 
and  influencing  the  people  in  their  social  and  domestic 
relations.  Few  are  inclined  to  concede  to  him,  be- 
yond this,  the  larger  and  more  important  sphere  of 
presiding  and  governing  in  the  work  of  bending  the 
energies  of  the  Church  to  the  task  of  the  world's 
salvation. 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       33 1 

This  is  doubtless  in  great  measure  the  fault  of  the 
ministry  themselves;  they  have  often  given  up  their 
headship  voluntarily,  because  of  the  amount  of  labor 
involved  in  it,  and  have  been  only  too  glad  to  let  the 
Church  take  its  own  course  or  no  course  at  all,  as  best 
suited  it;  but  in  many  instances  the  pastor  has  been 
denied  his  true  place,  in  all  the  work  of  the  Church, 
and  even  put  out  of  it.  The  Reformation  justly  cast 
out  the  idea  of  priesthood  from  its  conception  of  the 
ministry.  In  its  failure  to  discriminate  clearly, 
Protestantism  has  since  almost  cast  out  the  ideas  of 
directiom.nd  control.  With  hoXh  priesthood  and  headship 
retained,  the  papacy  wields  a  marvelous  power;  with 
neither,  the  Protestant  Church  is  largely  shorn  of  its 
vigor  and  efficiency. 

Now  it  is  evident  that  the  first  adjustment  demanded 
by  these  times  is  a  threefold  adjustment     iheAdjust- 
of  the    practise   of    the    Church    to    this  "lent  Required, 
divine   law. 

The  Reformation,  under  Luther,  fixed  in  the  heart 
of  the  Church  the  vital  truth  that  man  can  only  be 
saved  by  personal  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
There  seems  almost  to  be  needed  a  second  refor- 
mation, to  fix  in  the  soul  of  every  member  of  the 
Church  the  vital  truth  that  he  has  been  saved  in  order 
that  he  may  become  a  personal  worker  for  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  and  that  every  Christian,  if  he  is  not  to 
forfeit  his  title  to  the  name,  must  go  to  work  for 
Christ.  This  will  give  the  energies  to  be  directed. 
Christians  must  be  brought  to  understand,  and  feel 
too,  that  the  Church  is  a  Divine  institution,  ordained 
of  Christ  for  the  mission  of  the  world's  conversion; 
gifted  with  the  requisite  powers;  containing  in  its 
simple  organization  all  the  machinery  necessary,  and 


332       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

at  once  competent  to  the  direction  of  those  powers 
and  the  wielding  of  that  machinery;  and  irrevocably 
under  obligation  to  carry  forward  the  work  at  once  in 
obedience  to  Christ's  command.  And  then  the  Church, 
with  this  consciousness  of  its  mission,  instead  of  plant- 
ing itself  immovably  across  the  track  of  progress,  must 
carryforward  the  work  with  all  its  powers  in  God's  way. 
And  the  Church  obviously  needs  to  rise  to  that 
larger  conception  of  the  sphere  of  the  pastorate  that 
shall  clearly  take  in  all  its  functions  and  recognize 
the  sacredness  of  the  office;  and  then  to  seek,  in  its 
schools  of  training,  to  mold  and  fashion  those  sent  of 
God  to  fill  that  office  in  accordance  with  such  larger 
conception,  so  that  the  right  man  may  be  prepared  for 
the  place.  And  the  pastor  needs  to  take  his  place  of 
direction  ;  and  when  he  does  so — with  a  working 
membership,  organized  in  the  church  and  under  one 
chief  director — we  may  expect  glorious  progress  for 
the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth. 

II.   The  Pastor  for  this  Age. 

We  are  thus  brought  to  the  second  part  of  our  sub- 
ject; the  pastor  for  the  age  and  place.  What  sort  of 
man  must  he  be  in  his  Christian  character  ?  What  in 
his  place  of  direction  ?     What  must  be  his  training  ? 

In  general,  it  will  be  admitted  that  we  must  have 
a  Christian  soul  inspired,  energized,  and  molded  by 
God's  Word  and  Spirit,  and  fitted  at  once  to  reach  out 
through  a  Christian  life  and  activity,  and  impress  the 
Church  with  his  own  Christlikeness,  and  to  direct  that 
Church  in  doing  like  work.  Success  will  depend,  other 
things  being  equal,  upon  the  dignity  and  intensity  of 
the  life;  upon  its  directing  power  and  the  energy  given 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       333 

it  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  and  upon  the  bent  and  devel- 
opment resulting  from  its  training  and  its  contact 
with  men. 


(I)  A  Better  Christian  Man  and  Worker. 

In  giving  a  more  specific  answer  to  the  first  of  the 
questions  proposed  above,  it  may  be  said  that  the  first 
and  pressing  demand  of  the  times  is  for  a  better 
Christian  man  and  worker  in  the  pastoral  ofiice.  This 
has  already  been  emphasized  from  the  side  of  the 
preacher;  it  needs  to  be  emphasized  from  that  of  the 
pastor. 

The    **  world,"   which    the    early  disciples  were   to 
overcome  by  faith,  had  a  mighty  meaning.     It  was  the 
iron  world   of   Rome,    embracing  every-     1.  Stronger 
thing  included  in  that,  from  the  emperor    Man  and  Un- 
to  the  slave,  from  the  gods  to  the  pas-       Calling, 
sions  over   which  they    presided,   and  from  the   laws 
to  the  legions.       But    the    subtle,    unprincipled,    un- 
impressible    world    of    to-day,    sweeping  to  perdition 
under   pressure   of   steam  and   electricity  with  awful 
momentum,   is  quite  as  hard  a  world    to   deal   with. 
To   impress   this    world  at  all,   there  is  demanded  a 
higher  style  of  man,  a  man  after  Christ's  own  pattern, 
more  pervaded  by  Christ's  spirit  as  a  spirit  of  wisdom 
and  power,  a  spirit  of  boundless  love  and  self-sacrifice, 
and  put  in  his  place  in  Christ's  own  way. 

To  sum  up  in  a  single  period — there  is  needed  in  the 
pastorate  a  man  called  of  God,  cultured  and  guided 
and  energized  of  God,  for  his  work;  upheld  and 
directed  by  the  promised  personal  presence  of  God; 
and  possessed  with  an  abiding  and  overwhelming 
sense  of  his  mission  from  heaven.     In  a  word,  there  is 


334    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

emphatic  call  for  a  minister  of  that  new  order  that  we 
have  already  seen  to  be  demanded  by  these  times. 
Nothing  less  can  meet  the  needs  of  the  age  and  for- 
ward the  solution  of  its  problems.  These  require- 
ments are  therefore  to  be  insisted  upon  strenuously 
and  emphasized  distinctly. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  lay  too  great  stress  upon 
an  unmistakable  call  from  Christ  to  the  work  of  the 
pastorate.  In  the  past  generation  of  ministers,  there 
was  much  timely  and  earnest  discussion  of  the  nature 
of  the  office  of  the  ministry,  by  Dr.  Wayland  and 
others.  We  heard  much  about  an  "  overstocked  minis- 
try." In  one  respect  not  without  reason.  Speaking 
to  his  class  on  this  theme,  Dr.  Joseph  Addison 
Alexander  once  said  :  *'  The  pastor  is  sent  to  feed  the 
flock  of  Christ;  but  some  men  only  drive  the  sheep 
about  and  fleece  them."  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  is 
true  of  comparatively  few  of  the  accredited  evangelical 
ministry  of  this  age;  but  doubtless  it  is  still  true  that 
there  is  a  large  class,  proved  uncalled  by  their  lifelong 
idleness  or  uselessness,  who  give  some  color  to  the 
complaint  of  an  ''overstocked  ministry."  In  view  of 
these  facts,  there  is  no  possibility  of  emphasizing  too 
strongly  the  worthlessness  of  an  uncalled  ministry. 
The  pastoral  work  tests  such  men.  They  have  no 
interest  in  the  pastoral  vocation;  and  it  is  in  this 
sphere  that  they  are  peculiarly  a  source  of  evil  to  the 
Church.  **Wo  be  to  the  pastors  that  destroy  and 
scatter  the  sheep  of  my  pasture!  saith  the  Lord."  * 
The  way  in  which  the  minister  carries  himself  in  the 
pastorate  is  perhaps  the  severest  test  of  his  divine 
call. 

It  is  manifest  that  no  man  can  speak  or  act  with  the 
authority  with  which  men  must  speak  and  act  in  this 

*Jer.  xxiii.  i. 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       335 

day,  to  be  heard  above  the  thunder  of  the  world's 
traffic  and  heeded,  without  a  call  as  real,  if  not  as 
articulate,  as  had  the  prophets  in  the  olden   times. 

Secondly,  there  is  equal  need  to  emphasize  the 
importance,  in  the  pastorate  of  the  present  day,  of  a 
man  led  of  God  to  that  higher  Christian  2.  A  Higher 
life  in  which  a  constant  Divine  pres-  Christian  Life, 
ence  is  realized  in  speech  and  action,  in  all  the  life 
and  work.  There  is  perhaps  valid  reason  to  fear  that 
much  of  the  so-called  Christian  work  of  the  day  draws 
too  little  of  its  inspiration  from  the  communion  of  the 
closet  and  the  approbation  of  the  God  who  sees  in 
secret.  The  "right  hands"  too  often  spend  quite  as 
much  time  in  telling  the  ''  left  hands  "  *  what  they  have 
been  doing  as  they  occupy  in  the  work  itself;  and,  as 
might  be  anticipated,  the  workmen  frequently  acquire 
a  greater  facility  in  telling  than  in  doing.  It  shows  a 
state  of  things  all  wrong. 

The  perfectionism,  advocated  by  various  parties, 
and  put  into  systematic  shape  by  Upham,  in  the 
Interior  Life  and  Life  of  Faith^  and  the  books  that 
have  recently  followed  in  the  same  line,  we  are 
inclined  to  think  partly  the  result  of  a  dawning  sense 
of  the  need  of  a  higher  and  better  life  in  the  Church. 
In  the  growing  consciousness  of  this  need  we  find 
the  explanation  of  the  hearty  response  with  which 
Boardman's  Lligher  Christian  Life  was  met  by  so 
many  Christians.  Now  it  is  the  advance  in  Christian 
attainment  which  the  latter  book  urges — however 
greatly  one  may  differ  from  it  in  its  terms  and  modes 
of  explanation — that  is  needed  in  the  sacred  office; 
the  style  of  Christian  life  that  comes  from  complete 
understanding  and  acceptance  of  Christ.  Too  many 
are  living  with  only  half  a  Christ,  and  that  the  half 

*  Matt.  vi.  3. 


336     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

which  has  least  to  do  with  girding  the  Christian  for 
the  work  of  life.  The  tendency  is  to  stop  with  the 
doctrine  of  justification  by  the  blood  of  Jesus.  The 
heathen  Festus,  in  rehearsing  to  Agrippa  the  grounds 
of  dispute  between  Paul  and  his  Jewish  accusers,  said 
that  it  had  to  do  with  "  one  dead  Jesus,  whom  Paul 
affirmed  to  be  alive  again."*  It  takes  the  two,  the 
dying  and  dead  Jesus,  and  the  risen  and  living  Jesus, 
to  lay  a  complete  foundation  for  a  Christian  life — the 
dying  Jesus,  by  whose  righteousness  the  law  and 
justice  of  God  are  satisfied,  and  forgiveness  and 
restoration  to  the  Divine  favor  secured — and  the 
risen,  living,  interceding,  reigning  Jesus,  by  whose 
promised  personal  presence,  along  with  and  in  the 
Christian,  he  is  girded  for  all  the  struggle  of  life — it 
takes  the  two  to  make  the  strong  man  in  the  service 
of  God.     Too  many  of  us  have  only  a  *'^^d!^  Jesus." 

We  are  persuaded  that  this  is  a  vital  matter — that 
just  here  is  the  secret  of  the  inefficiency  of  many  pas- 
tors. The  completeness  with  which  a  man  receives,  is 
is  made  alive  by,  and  lives  by  Christ,  will,  other  things 
being  equal,  measure  his  power  in  influencing  and 
molding  men.  Christ  sends  his  followers  to  be  '  liv- 
ing epistles,  known  and  read  of  all  men.*  The  pastor 
of  this  age  has  got  to  take  more  note  of  the  imperial 
power  of  a  right  Christian  life.  There  are  things  too 
great,  too  deep,  and  too  sacred  for  him  to  speak  them 
to  men  in  all  their  fulness  with  mere  words — he  can 
only  live  them.  It  is  not,  of  course,  to  be  denied  that 
truth  is  beautiful  and  forceful  in  its  own  unfading 
light;  but  it  is  when  embodied  in  a  life,  and  so  made 
itself  a  living  thing,  that  it  shines  with  its  richest 
splendor.  While  the  life  of  Paul  is  a  grander  epic 
than  Homer  or  Milton  could  produce,   it  is  also  as 

*  Acts  XXV.  19. 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       337 

cogent  an  argument  for  the  power  of  his  religion  as  any 
he  ever  penned,  and  added  tenfold  to  that  argument 
as  penned  by  him.  While  the  career  of  the  incarnate 
Son  of  God  is  a  sublimer  tragedy  than  ^schylus  or 
Shakespeare  could  imagine,  it  is  also  a  clearer  and 
grander  expression  of  the  love  of  God  than  the  most 
significant  of  human  words  could  voice.  As  Holland's 
poem,  Kathrina^  so  beautifully  showed,  there  is  no 
logic  of  infidelity  that  can  refute  or  resist  a  downright 
earnest,  loving  Christian  life,  embodying  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Gospel. 

Let  us  not  be  mistaken  here.  We  believe  in  creeds — 
and  in  creeds  that  utter  no  uncertain  sound — but  the 
source  of  the  pastor's  power  is  not  so  much  in  the 
right  creed  printed  in  his  Confession  of  Faith,  as  in 
that  right  creed  embodied  and  enforced  in  his  life. 
The  work  of  Christ  demands  that  every  one  called  to 
the  pastor's  office,  in  this  day,  should  rise  to  a  life  that 
shall  have  its  source  in  implicit  trust  in  the  merit  of  a 
dying  Christ,  and  find  its  strength  in  sublime  confi- 
dence in  a  living,  reigning,  indwelling  Christ,  inspir- 
ing and  aiding  him  in  all  his  work.  The  infatuated 
world  will  give  heed  to  no  other  life  than  one  right 
from  God. 

And  it  would  be  impossible  to  lay  too  great  stress 
upon  the  necessity,  in  the  pastor  of  this  day,  of  a  con- 
stant  and    overwhelming:    sense    of    his   «   .  ^    .      , 

='  3.  A  Profound 

mission    for   Christ   to    men.      This  has     Sense  of  his 
been    emphasized    for   the   preacher;    it        Mission, 
needs   equally   to   be   emphasized   for   the    pastor. 

The  man  called  of  God,  and  filled  of  God  with  Christ, 
must  have  his  gaze  turned  constantly  in  the  direction 
of  his  work.  An  ambassador  for  Christ,  beseeching 
men  in  Christ's  stead  to  be  reconciled  to  God,  his  mis- 


338    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

sion  is  the  grandest  one  ever  given  to  man.  He  needs 
to  have  such  a  sense  of  it  that  everything  shall  be 
made  to  have  reference  to  this  work  of  saving  souls; 
that  every  moment,  every  talent,  every  energy,  every 
breath  shall  be  consecrated  to  this;  that  the  whole 
career  shall  be  decided  and  shaped  by  this. 

And  let  this  be  urged  the  more  earnestly,  because 
nothing  but  a  sense  of  a  Divine  mission  can  take 
away  the  hankering  of  men  after  their  own  self-devised 
missions;  nothing  but  this  feeling  that  the  moments 
are  Christ's,  and  given  for  the  saving  of  souls,  can  pre- 
serve the  clergy  from  the  indolence  and  loss  of  studious 
habits  that  ruin  so  many  and  threaten  the  ruin  of  so 
many  more;  nothing  but  this  living  conviction,  that 
every  energy  is  Christ's  for  the  highest  work,  can  save 
the  clergy  from  the  petty  social  and  literary  ambitions 
that  prove  fatal  in  so  many  cases;  nothing  but  this 
perpetual  sense  of  responsibility  for  souls  can  save  the 
clergy  from  that  silence  of  indifference  on  things 
spiritual,  in  their  intercourse  with  the  people,  that  is 
leaving  the  multitudes  to  hurry  in  their  own  unhindered 
way  to  perdition;  and  nothing  but  this  can  transform 
the  whole  pastoral  work  into  what  it  should  be — a 
seeking  for  souls. 

Given  the  unmistakable  call  from  God,  the  appro- 
priation of  a  complete  Christ,  and  his  embodiment  in 
the  Christian  life,  and  this  perpetual  sense  of  his 
sublime  mission  from  God,  and  you  have  the  better 
man  and  better  worker  imperatively  demanded  in  the 
pastorate  at  the  present  time.  Such  a  man  will  have 
power  even  in  an  age  like  this.  Men  will  not  scoff  at 
him  and  put  him  out  of  his  place.  He  will  make  him- 
self felt  through  all  the  barriers  of  business  and 
fashion  and  of  religious  indifference. 


THE   PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       339 


(II)  A  Man  of  Larger  Administrative  Ability. 

The  second  question,  touching  the  man  for  the  pas- 
torate of  the  day,  concerned  his  adaptation  to  the 
place  of  direction.  The  second  pressing  want  in  the 
pastorate  is  the  development  and  application  of  a 
larger  administrative  ability. 

It  is  evident  that,  whatever  his  character,  the  pas- 
tor alone  can  not  overtake   this  steam-driven,  giddy 
world.     He  can  do  it  only  by  summon-      „ 
ing  all  the  Church  to  his  aid  and  directing     Gather  the 
them    in    the   work.     In  Dr.    Bushnell's         ^°^<^«s- 
address,*  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made, 
occurs  the  following  passage: 

"  Our  preacher,  therefore,  is  not  a  mere  public  speaker, — far  from 
that  as  possible, — but  he  is  to  have  a  capacity  of  being  and  doing  ;  an 
administrative,  organizing  capacity;  a  power  to  contrive  and  lead,  and 
put  the  saints  in  work,  and  keep  the  work  aglow,  and  so  to  roll  up  a 
cause  by  ingatherings  and  careful  incrementations.  The  success  and 
power  of  the  preacher,  considering  his  fixed  settlement  in  a  place,  will 
not  seldom  depend  even  more  on  a  great  administrative  capacity  than 
it  will  on  his  preaching.  And  with  good  reason;  for  it  really  takes 
more  high  manhood,  more  wisdom,  firmness,  character,  and  right- 
seeing  ability  to  administer  well  in  the  cause  than  it  does  to  preach 
well.  No  matter  what  seeming  talent  there  may  be  in  the  preaching, 
if  there  is  no  administrative  talent,  then  the  man  is  a  boy,  and  the 
boy  will  have  a  boy's  weight — nothing  more.  On  the  other  hand, 
being  a  true  man,  able  to  be  felt  by  his  manly  direction,  his  medioc- 
rity in  the  sermon  will  be  made  up  by  respect  for  his  always  right- 
seeing  activity.  In  this  office,  then,  of  preaching,  one  of  the  very 
highest  talents  demanded  is  an  administrative  talent.  Every  preacher 
wants  it,  even  more  than  he  would  in  the  governing  of  a  State." 

With  the  qualification  that  we  look  upon  it  from  the 
side  of  the  pastorate  rather  than  of  the  pulpit,  and 

*0n  "Pulpit  Talent." 


340    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

with  some  exceptions  elsewhere  noted,  we  are  ready  to 
indorse  the  thought  of  this  passage  most  heartily. 
Admitting  the  importance  of  the  duties  ordinarily 
assigned  to  the  pastor,  still  we  do  not  hesitate  to 
affirm  that  the  work  of  the  pastorate  in  this  age  must 
be  made  chiefly  one  of  direction.  The  pastor  is  to 
accomplish  more  by  wielding  the  energies  of  the 
Church  than  by  his  own  personal  effort.  He  can  not 
in  any  other  way  do  what  is  waiting  to  be  done.  It  is 
evident  to  one  who  discerns  the  signs  of  the  times 
that  we  have  come  upon  the  day  when  the  adminis- 
trative talent  of  the  clergy  needs  to  be  developed, 
along  with  the  individual  activity  of  the  membership. 
The  attempts  made  to  remedy  the  existing  defects 
show  this.  Hence  has  arisen  the  long-continued  and 
all-important  discussion  of  the  responsibility  and 
agency  of  the  laity  in  the  service  of  Christ — a  discus- 
sion upon  the  decision  of  which,  as  one  can  readily 
see,  the  future  of  the  Church  must  to  a  very  large 
degree  depend. 

As  in  connection  with  all  great  religious  movements 
there  are  great  errors  to  be  guarded  against,  so  in  this 
there  are  such,  patent  to  all  discerning  men,  that  it 
will  require  all  the  wisdom  of  God's  people  to  avoid. 
The  Church  all  workers;  the  Church  with  the  prerog- 
ative and  duty  of  directing  its  own  energies  to  Christ's 
work ;  the  pastor  at  the  head  of  the  directing  element, — 
we  have  seen  to  be  the  Divine  law  that  should  govern 
Christian  effort.  Any  departure  from  this,  even  on 
what  may  seem  the  best  of  human  grounds,  must,  in 
the  last  result,  be  fraught  with  evil.  Least  of  all  can 
the  regulative,  administrative  capacity,  lodged  in  the 
organized  Church  and  in  the  divinely  appointed  leader, 
be  dispensed  with.     There  is  reason  for  fearing  that 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       34I 

this  is  not  enough  taken  into  account  in  some  of  the 
current  Church  movements. 

An  increased  development  and  appHcation  of  admin- 
istrative capacity  in  the  pastorate  must  then  be  insisted 
upon,  as  essential  to  the  highest  success  2.  Necessary  to 
in  pushing  the  immediate  evangelization  '^^^^  the  Work, 
of  the  world  in  obedience  to  Christ's  last  command. 
Admmistrative  is  the  word  rather  than  07'ganizing.  That 
minister  is  a  rare  man  who  has  come  to  even  a  slight 
appreciation  of  the  command  of  Christ,  ''  Feed  my 
sheep";  but  the  man  called  for  by  the  exigencies  of 
the  present  day  is  the  much  rarer  man,  who  has  come 
to  some  slight  understanding  of  that  more  compre- 
hensive command,  '' ^S/z^/^ffr^  my  sheep,"  "  shepherd  my 
with  which  Christ  followed  up  the  former  Sheep." 
command.  That  is  where  the  administrative  talent 
comes  in.  That  is  just  where  ministerial  development 
needs  to  be  brought  into  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  as  manifested  in  business  and  all  other  prac- 
tical activities — in  the  wielding  and  directing  of  organ- 
ized masses  and  forces.  There  is  need  of  power,  not 
to  make  new  machinery,  but  to  use  efficiently  that 
which  has  already  been  given  to  the  Church  by  Christ. 

This  demand  for  increased  administrative  ability  is 
enforced  by  the  fact  that  there  has  been  no  period  in 
modern  times  that  afforded  such  facilities  as  the 
present  for  the  exercise  and  direction  of  individual 
Christian  activity.  Of  the  change  that  had  then 
taken  place  in  individual  Christian  activity.  Dr.  Enoch 
Pond  said,  thirty  years  ago,  in  his  Lectures  on  Pastoral 
Theology : 

"  I  count  it  one  of  the  peculiar  privileges  of  the  present  age  that 
it  presents  so  many  opportunities  for  labor  in  the  cause  of  Christ — 
labor  not  only  for  the  officers  of  the  Church,  but  for  all  the  members. 


342       CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

Every  one  who  has  a  hand  and  heart  to  labor  in  the  Lord's  vineyard 
can  now  find  something  appropriate  for  him  to  do.  In  this  respect 
the  times  are  very  different  from  what  they  were  two  generations 
ago." 

The  thirty  years  that  have  since  elapsed  have 
wrought  a  still  more  marvelous  change,  not  only  in 
the  breadth  and  scope  and  variety  of  Christian 
activity,  but  also  in  its  organization  and  definiteness 
of  aim.  This  movement  has  included  the  extensive 
work  of  the  various  tract,  Sunday-school,  and  mission 
agencies,  by  which  it  has  been  sought  to  extend  the 
influence  of  the  Gospel  to  all  regions  and  all  classes. 
We  recognize  the  latest  phase  of  it  in  ^'  Silent  Evangel- 
ism," which  is  practically  the  old  tract  work  brought 
into  touch  with  the  present  time,  and  bringing  well- 
directed  personal  effort  within  the  reach  of  those  who 
have  not  the  gift  of  tongue.  The  movement  has  also 
included  the  thorough  organizing  of  the  youthful 
working  forces  in  the  Church,  in  the  great  agencies 
that  now  belt  the  globe,— the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  the  Y.  P. 
S.  C.  E.,  etc., — the  spiritual  value  of  which  must 
always  depend  upon  their  yielding  an  increase  of 
genuine  Christian  work,  and  the  ability  and  wisdom  of 
the  directory  that  is  back  of  them. 

It  is  thus  a  special  problem  of  the  day  how  best  to 

In  Directing  develop  and  direct  the  activity  of  the 
the  Membership,  membership,  and  how  best  to  use  all 
these   new  agencies  in  accomplishing  this  object. 

The  spheres  are  various.  In  the  home-church  and 
congregation  there  is  always  a  wide  field  for  Christian 
effort.  The  multitudes  within  the  scope  of  the  home- 
pastorate  are  to  be  reached  and  influenced  and  shaped 
by  personal  and  constant  intercourse  with  the  pastor 
and  officers;  are  to  be   led   by  Christian  communion 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       343 

and  interchange  of  views,  sentiments,  and  experiences, 
to  a  higher  piety  and  a  larger  and  more  intelligent 
benevolence;  are  to  be  brought  together,  and  all  the 
varied  and  even  discordant  elements  to  be  molded 
into  unity  and  harmony  and  efficiency,  and  then  per- 
vaded with  that  indescribable  but  irresistible  esprit  de 
corps  to  which  nothing  by  way  of  organized  and  ener- 
getic effort  is  impossible. 

In  this  scheme  every  man  finds  his  place,  and  there 
need  no  longer  be  occasion  for  the  impression  of  the 
honest  Scotchman,  that  the  only  use  of  a  deacon  or  an 
elder  is  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  Church  quar- 
rels, and  the  only  use  of  the  members  to  furnish  the 
material  for  quarrels. 

Within  this  general  work  there  is  the  special  func- 
tion that  has  to  do  with  the  preparation  for  the  Church 
of  the  next  generation,  in  training  the  i^  xraininff 
young;  which  is  perhaps  the  most  im-  the  Young, 
portant  that  comes  within  the  reach  of  the  preacher 
as  pastor.  The  younger  element  in  the  membership 
requires  of  the  pastor  practical  instruction,  that  shall 
restrain  the  ruinous  tendency  to  withdraw  from 
spiritual  activity  and  to  fall  into  laxity  of  views,  and 
the  not  less  ruinous  tendency  to  conceit, — by  laying 
in  them  a  solid  basis  in  doctrine,  by  giving  them  intel- 
ligent conceptions  of  their  mission,  and  by  leading 
them  to  the  early  formation  of  right  habits  of  Christian 
usefulness.  There  is,  besides,  a  duty  to  the  children 
of  the  Church,  to  be  performed  through  the  Sabbath- 
school  and  family.  To  use  the  Sunday-school  aright, 
as  a  place  for  training  the  church  members  to  work 
for  Christ,  while  leading  the  children  to  a  knowledge 
of  Bible-truth;  to  give  interest  and  efficiency  to  its 
work  without  a  library  of  tenth-rate  novels,  a  concert 


344      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

of  theatricals,  and  a  teaching  made  up  of  petty  gossip 
and  clever  story — must  demand  of  the  pastor  the 
exercise  of  an  administrative  capacity  that  can  lay 
hold  of  and  employ  all  the  piety  and  talent  and  energy 
of  the  Church. 

There  is  perhaps  no  command  of  Christ  that  is  of 
greater  importance  to  the  minister  to-day  than  the 

"Feed  My  command,  "  Feed  my  lambs";  and  there 
Lambs."  is  perhaps  no  command  just  now  in 
more  danger  of  being  forgotten.  Bishop  John  H. 
Vincent  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  whose 
life-long  work  for  the  young  has  made  him  a  recog- 
nized authority  in  that  department  of  Christian  effort, 
has  recently  uttered  some  wise  words  of  warning,  to 
which  the  ministry  will  do  well  to  give  full  heed.  He 
says  :  * 

"  There  is,  I  fear,  in  our  day  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  certain 
ministers  to  remand  the  Sunday-schools  to  the  care  of  the  superin- 
tendent and  the  teachers,  and  to  '  patronize '  the  school  occasionally 
by  an  official  visit.  There  are  pastors  who  hold  no  teachers'  meet- 
ing, who  rarely  visit  the  teachers*  meeting,  if  there  be  one,  who  have 
organized  no  normal  class,  and  who  have  no  voice  whatever  in  the 
selection  of  the  men  and  women,  who,  as  representatives  of  the 
pastor,  are  to  teach  and  shepherd  that  important  part  of  the  flock. 

"It  is  a  painful  fact  that  in  many  of  our  churches  no  children's 
meetings  are  held  for  special  religious  services  except  those  which 
come  under  the  care  of  laymen,  and  often  very  young  laymen,  in 
Christian  Endeavor,  Epworth  League,  and  other  young  people's 
associations.  The  Sunday-school  and  the  Christian  Endeavor  have 
taken  charge  of  the  young  folks,  and,  in  many  cases,  immature  and 
irresponsible  people  are  the  only  teachers  of  religious  things  whom 
the  youth  of  the  Church  recognize.  In  many  families,  even  in  Chris- 
tian families,  I  am  told,  family  prayer  is  a  reminiscence.     In  many 

*  See  Article  on  "The  Pastor  in  the  Sunday-school — his  Place, 
Work  and  Influence,"  in  the  Homiletic  Review  for  February,  1896, 
pp.  104-05. 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       345 

churches  there  are  no  longer  classes  of  catechumens.  In  many 
Methodist  Episcopal  churches,  altho  the  Book  of  Discipline  of  that 
Church  is  very  explicit  on  the  subject,  there  are  no  classes  of  chil- 
dren and  youth  in  which  the  pastor  conforms  to  the  well-known  Par- 
agraph 46,  which  reads  as  follows  :  '  The  pastor  shall  organize  the 
baptized  children  of  the  Church,  when  they  are  at  the  age  of  ten 
years  or  younger,  into  classes,  and  appoint  suitable  leaders  (male  or 
female),  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  meet  them  in  class  once  a  week, 
and  instruct  them  in  the  nature,  design,  and  obligations  of  baptism, 
and  in  the  truths  of  religion  necessary  to  make  them  '  wise  unto  sal- 
vation'; urge  them  to  give  regular  attendance  upon  the  means  of 
grace  ;  advise,  exhort,  and  encourage  them  to  an  immediate  conse- 
cration of  their  hearts  and  lives  to  God,  and  inquire  into  the  state  of 
their  religious  experience.'  This  same  pregnant  paragraph  pro- 
vides, '  that  children  unbaptized  are  not  to  be  excluded  from  these 
classes.*  The  fear  which  I  express  is  that  the  pastor  does  not 
organize  young  people  and  bring  them  under  his  personal  direction 
and  teaching,  as  the  statutes  of  most  churches  require,  and  as  the 
very  fact  of  his  pastoral  relation  renders  imperative.  To  the  Sunday- 
school  and  the  young  people's  organization  is  turned  over  all  this 
important  work,  and  instead  of  the  pastor  we  have  untaught,  inex- 
perienced, and,  too  often,  worldly  men  and  women,  and  these  not 
always  wise  with  the  experience  of  age,  to  fulfil  functions  of  the  most 
delicate  and  sacred  character. 

"  The  pastor  should  therefore  Ji7id  his  place  in  the  Sunday-school 
as  pastor,  and  proceed  to  organize  such  classes,  to  provide  such 
courses  of  instruction  and  himself  to  supervise  them,  that  he  may 
remove  from  the  thought  of  the  Church,  and  especially  from  the 
thought  of  childhood,  that  somehow  the  Sunday-school  is  a  substi- 
tute for  the  pastorate,  and  that  Sunday-school  teachers  are  sufficient 
to  do  the  work  which  the  commission  of  the  Master  imposes  upon 
the  ministry — the  feeding  of  the  lambs,  the  teaching  of  Holy  Scrip- 
tures which  make  '  wise  unto  salvation,'  and  which  teach,  reprove, 
correct,  and  instruct  in  righteousness  those  who  are  to  be,  if  they  are 
not  already,  formally  enrolled  as  disciples  of  Christ." 

Moreover,  to  bring  back  home  instruction  to  be 
what  it  should  be,  an  efficient  aid  in  training  for  the 
Church;  to   show  parents,  and   make   them  feel,  that 


346     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

the  work  committed  to  them — for  which  God  has  pre- 
pared them  by  the  deepest  and  tenderest  love,  and  the 
most  constant  and  winning  example,  and  the  strongest 
and  most  absolute  authority — can  not  possibly  be 
turned  over  with  safety  to  any  one  else;  and  to  give 
the  new  impulse,  so  much  needed,  to  home  religion — 
will  require  of  the  pastor  a  weight  of  influence  that 
shall  shape  the  sentiment  of  the  whole  community. 

In  bringing  up  the  Church  to  this  various  work, 
private  communion  and  consultation  and  systematic 
visitation  will  be  needed — in  short,  every  means  of 
exerting  influence,  and  of  leading  others  to  active 
cooperation,  will   be  called   into  requisition. 

Moreover,    in   the   outlying  and  destitute   regions, 

beyond  the  bounds  of  the  immediate  congregation,  is 

_   _     , .        an  almost  unlimited   field   of  effort.     In 
In  Beaching 

the  World  the  cities  this  vast  work  is  as  yet  almost 
Outside.  untouched.  There  are  greater  numbers 
yet  to  be  reached  by  the  Gospel  than  are  now  found 
in  all  our  congregations.  To  reach  and  bring  them  in 
will  require  the  most  wise  and  tactful  application  of 
every  legitimate  method.  But,  in  the  opinion  of  many 
the    ''territorial  method" — introduced    by  Chalmers, 

The"Terri-  advocated  and  presented  by  Guthrie,  in 
torial  Method."  Out  of  Harness^  and  Sketches  of  the  Cow- 
gate — is  to  be  the  chief  and  most  efficient  mode  of 
reaching  these  multitudes.  The  Church  seems  to  be 
settling  upon  it  with  a  firmer  conviction.  It  takes 
into  account  all  the  principles  that,  in  the  discussion  of 
the  law  of  the  pastorate,  have  been  seen  to  be  essential. 
In  the  work  of  the  teachers,  and  of  the  helpers  of  the 
missionary  pastors,  is  furnished  a  channel  into  which 
an  amount  of  energy  may  be  turned  that  shall  bring 
greater  results  than  have  been  seen  to  flow  from  our 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.        347 

efforts,  by  way  of  mission  schools,  and  street,  and 
dock,  and  theater  preaching,  in  all  the  past.  And  in 
reaching  the  masses  in  our  great  cities  **the  insti- 
tutional church,"  just  now  becoming  so  important  a 
factor,  will  doubtless  in  the  near  future  have  a  large 
development  and  application. 

Then  there  is  a  great  world  beyond,  to  which  we  can 
send  a  substitute  if  we  can  not  go  ourselves,  and  to  the 
immediate  evangelization  of  which  Christ  calls  his 
Church. 

Is  it  not  patent  to  every  one  that  there  has  never 
been  an  age  that  admitted  and  called  for  such  develop- 
ment in  the  right  direction  ?  The  work  is  waiting  on 
every  hand.  The  channels  are  already  prepared;  but 
this  rushing  world  will  never  be  overtaken  without  all 
the  energies  the  Church  can  furnish,  united  and  directed 
in  the  right  way. 

The  call  is  for  men,  in  the  pastor's  place,  fitted  by 
enlarged  administrative  capacity  to  be  leaders  of 
Christ's  hosts.  Wherever  such  men  are  found  in  the 
place,  progress  is  made.  The  grandest  successes  of 
the  day  are  won  by  them.  We  have  had  examples 
in  the  heart  of  London — in  Newman  Hall,  with  his 
twenty  mission  places,  and  in  Spurgeon,  wielding,  in 
ceaseless  activity  and  in  every  direction  at  once,  the 
largest  membership  in  any  one  Church  organization  in 
Christendom.  It  was  clearly  in  just  this  qualification, 
that  Mr.  Spurgeon  greatly  surpassed  that  other  splen- 
did preacher,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and  in  virtue  of 
this  he  was  able  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  work  in- 
volving many  institutions  and  vast  and  complicated 
machinery  for  instruction  and  training  for  ministers 
and  Christian  workers,  and  for  missionary  and  philan- 
thropic effort,  that  remains  as  an  enduring  monument 


34^    Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

of  his  administrative  genius,  while  still  continuing  to 
bless  the  whole  world.  In  this  age,  there  is  a  mission 
for  some  second  Luther,  in  rousing  the  Church  to  a 
sense  of  the  grandeur  of  her  present  opportunities, 
and  impressing  upon  her  the  divine  law  of  right  work 
under  right  direction.  Meanwhile  the  absence  of  some 
one  mighty  soul,  sent  for  this  end,  casts  the  responsi- 
bility upon  all  who  are  in  the  ranks  of  the  ministry. 

(Ill)  A  Man  of  Broader  and  Better  Pastoral 

Training. 

The  third  question,  touching  the  man  for  the  pastor 
in  these  times,  had  to  do  with  his  training.  This  fer- 
tile subject  must  be  passed  over  with  a  few  brief  hints. 
Three  things  enter  into  the  idea  intended — increased 
vigor  of  soul,  enlarged  sympathy  with  men,  and 
more  practical  knowledge  of  the  work;  the  first  to 
meet  the  requirement  for  a  higher  style  of  man  for  the 
place,  and  the  other  two  to  secure  a  better  adaptation 
to  his  place  of  influence  and  direction.  The  proper 
training  must  intelligently  seek  the  production  of 
these.  That  training  should  send  the  pastor  to  his 
work  with  a  larger  soul;  that  is,  with  an  increase  both 
of  mental  and  spiritual  power. 

There  is  need  of  a  more  vigorous  thinker,  with  both 
greater  acuteness  and  broader  comprehensiveness. 
1.  AMoreVig-  Let  it  not  be  said  that  this  is  a  require- 
orous  Thinker,  ment  for  the  pulpit  only;  it  is  as  much  a 
necessity  for  the  pastorate,  for  problems  more  difficult 
are  constantly  presenting  themselves  there  for  solu- 
tion— problems  involving  at  once  a  keener  logic  and  a 
more  subtile  metaphysics.  As  Dr.  Bushnell  has  well 
indicated,  the  pastorate  is  the  place    calling  for   the 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       349 

Stronger    man.       We     must   have    stronger    men    and 
more  of  them. 

It  is  related  by  Rev.  Thomas  Williams,  the  eccentric 
clergyman  who  preached  the  funeral  sermon  of  Dr. 
Emmons,  that  one  of  Dr.  Emmons'  members,  who 
contemplated  entering  the  ministry,  broached  the 
matter  to  his  pastor  in  this  wise  :  *'I  have  been  trying 
my  gifts,  and  find  that  I  have  reason  to  conclude,  I 
think  without  conceit,  that  I  would  make  a  tolerably 
good  minister.  What  do  you  think  about  it?"  The 
answer  of  Dr.  Emmons  was  characteristic:  **I  haven't 
a  doubt  of  it,  sir;  but  the  difficulty  is  that  we  have  too 
many  ^tolerably  good  ministers'  already!"  There  is 
need  of  something  better  than  tolerably  good  ministers 
in  the  pastorate  of  this  age. 

Strong  habits  of  practical  analytic  and  synthetic 
thought  alone  can  fit  for  the  present  work  of  the 
pastorate.  In  fact,  the  insight  and  comprehension 
called  for  in  the  place  of  administration  are  only 
analysis  and   synthesis  under  other  names. 

But  we  should  err,  if  we  failed  to  insist  on  a  better 
spiritual  nurture    for   those  who   are   looking   to  the 
ministry.     It  has  been  already  seen  that     g  a  Better 
the  .style    of  the    Christian    man     most  Spiritual  Nur- 
seriously  affects  the  result  of  his  efforts.  ^^^®* 

Theological  students  should  be  directed  and  aided, 
intelligently  and  constantly,  in  growing  in  that  prep- 
aration of  heart  that  is,  after  all,  more  important 
than  the  preparation  of  intellect. 

There  is  likewise  a  special  call  upon  the  schools  for 
the  production  of  an   enlarged  sympathy  with   man, 
and  an  increased  acquaintance  with  the  g  AnEnlareed 
actual  work  of  the  pastorate,  by  way  of     Sympathy, 
adapting  the  man  to  the  place.     Mere   acquaintance 


350      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINrSTRY. 

with  correct  theory  is  not  enough.  The  pastor  must 
have  his  right  theory  clearly  defined,  and  besides  this 
there  must  be  the  existing  bond  of  sympathy  between 
him  and  the  people,  and  then  practical  acquaintance 
with  the  ways  of  molding  them.  The  lack  of  these 
things,  in  a  large  number  of  those  who  enter  the  min- 
istry, has  been  deeply  felt  on  all  hands.  It  was  origi- 
nally difficult  to  retain  all  the  features  of  the  theologi- 
cal seminary  as  an  educational  institution,  and  to  add 
these  essential  features  of  ministerial  training.  It  has 
become  all  the  more  difficult,  because  of  the  increased 
number  of  studies  embraced  in  the  curriculum.  The 
solution  of  the  problem  will  doubtless  be  found  in  the 
systematic  devotion  of  the  long  vacations  of  the  stu- 
dent to  Christian  work,  organization,  and  exhortation, 
in  Sunday-school  and  mission  work,  under  the  wise 
direction  of  pastors. 

As  this  defect  in  practical  training  arose  from  the 
substitution  of  the  theological  school  for  the  old 
method  of  preparing  for  the  ministry  under  the  direc- 
tion of  some  pastor,  it  has  required  time  to  bring 
about  the  proper  adjustment  to  the  new  conditions. 
That  such  adjustment  is  exceedingly  important  goes 
with  the  saying;  that  it  will  be  brought  about  in  due 
time  may  be  confidently  expected. 

With  the  Divine  blessing  attending,  a  ministry 
trained  with  a  clear  and  intelligent  conception  of  the 
place  and  of  the  man  for  that  place,  can  not  fail  to 
make  of  the  pastorate  a  power  for  good  such  as  it 
has  not  been  since  Apostolic  days.  Under  a  large 
minded,  thoroughly  cultured,  and  wholly  consecrated 
leader,  there  may  be  expected,  with  God's  blessing,  a 
return  to  the  working  Church  of  primitive  Christianity. 

In  the  family,  the  state,  and  the  Church,  this  is  a 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       35 1 

day  of  questions  involving  grave  issues,  but  among 
them  all  there  is  none  more  momentous  and  far-reach- 
ing in  its  consequences  than  the  one  here  under  dis- 
cussion. The  success  of  the  work  of  the  Church  of  the 
present  day  must  be  won  by  return  to  the  Divine  idea 
of  the  pastorate,  and  by  the  raising  up  and  training  of 
men  adapted  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  position,  as 
defined  by  God's  Word. 

By  glancing  along  the  line  of  progress  by  which  the 
Church  has  come  to  the  present  vantage  ground,  and 
noting  God's  methods  of  forwarding  his  purpose  con- 
cerning Zion,  by  successive  stages  of  trial  and  prepara- 
tion, we  shall  be  the  better  prepared  to  understand  her 
position  at  the  present,  and  shall  get  a  clearer  view 
of  the  momentous  importance  of  what  we  have  been 
pleading  for.  In  the  progress  of  trial,  we  first  see 
Christianity  brought  face  to  face  with  the  law  and  the 
legions,  the  culture  and  the  gods,  of  the  old  world; 
then,  itself  enthroned  above  all  these  and  in  possession 
of  the  place  of  ease  and  power,  molding  the  empire  in 
its  own  way;  again,  in  fierce  struggle  with  barbarian 
force  and  overcoming  it  in  subduing  for  Christ  the 
Gothic  and  Slavic  nations  that  overran  the  empire; 
once  more,  in  the  hour  of  its  faintness,  at  the  time  of 
the  Renaissance,  meeting  the  forces  of  reawakened 
reason  and  rising  to  a  mightier  life  in  the  Reforma- 
tion; still  further  on,  coming  out  of  the  battle  with 
the  later  Rationalism,  girded  for  the  modern  mission- 
ary movement.  To-day,  when  we  see  it  grappling 
with  the  dizzy,  headlong,  terrible  energy  of  the 
world — what,  we  ask,  will  be  the  result  ? 

Turning  to  her  progress  of  preparation  for  the 
world's  conversion,  we  find  the  Church  first  defining 
and  formulating  her  doctrine,  while  the  world  that  is 


352     Christ's  trumpet-call  to  the  ministry. 

to  receive  the  doctrine  is  yet  unknown  and  inacces- 
sible ;  then  advancing  to  the  Reformation,  while, 
through  the  mariner's  compass,  the  world  in  its 
preparation  for  the  doctrine  of  Christ  keeps  pace  in 
becoming  a  known  world;  then  rousing  herself  for  the 
mission  movement,  while,  by  the  discovery  of  steam 
and  its  application  to  printing  and  locomotion,  the 
world  is  being  made  accessible  to  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 
Now,  when  we  see  the  energies  of  the  world  being 
developed  as  never  before,  and  heightened  by  the 
manifold  adaptations  of  science  and  the  direction  of 
the  mightiest  and  most  subtle  forces  of  nature,  to  the 
work  of  life;  and  when,  along  with  this,  innumerable 
channels  are  open  for  Christian  effort,  and  waiting  for 
this  energy  to  be  guided  through  them  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  Christ's  great  purpose — what,  we  are 
constrained  to  ask,  will  be  the  result? 

This  vast  store  of  human  energy  indicates,  in  its 
development  and  accumulation,  the  preparation  for  a 
final  stage  of  progress.  Sanctified  and  owned  of  God, 
it  is  just  what  is  needed  to  hasten  the  work  of  the 
world's  immediate  evangelization.  Even  now  much 
of  it  is  waiting  to  be  directed  into  the  ways  of  Chris- 
tian effort  and  enterprise.  Christ  is  waiting  to  give  it 
all  to  the  Church  when  she  sincerely  and  believingly 
asks  for  it,  and  shows  herself  ready  to  wield  it  for  his 
glory.  Upon  the  pastorate  of  these  coming  years, 
even  more  than  upon  the  pulpit,  will  depend  the 
progress  of  the  Church  and  the  hopes  of  the  world. 
With  the  right  man  in  the  right  place  everywhere  in 
the  Church  Catholic,  and  with  the  Divine  blessing,  the 
signs  of  the  times  would  indicate  the  near  approach  of 
the  great  consummation;  and  the  pastors  now  just 
entering  upon    their   work   may  confidently  hope  to 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       353 

witness  that  consummation  in  the  effective  preaching 
of  the  Gospel  to  every  creature. 

Concluding  Outlook. 

The  present  outlook  upon  humanity  reveals  an 
awful  crisis  in  human  affairs.  Two  mighty  hosts  are 
confronting  each  other  in  hostile  array. 

On  the  one  side,  the  armies  of  the  spiritual  Babylon 
are  gathering,  and  the  forces  and  spirits    The  Hosts  of 
of  evil,   human  and    Satanic,  are   mass-      Darkness, 
ing  as  if  for  the  great  final  struggle  of  Armageddon: 

"  The  three  unclean  spirits  like  frogs  come  out  of  the  mouth  of  the 
dragon,  and  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  beast,  and  out  of  the  mouth  of 
the  false  prophet  .  .  .  the  spirits  of  devils,  working  miracles,  which 
go  forth  unto  the  kings  of  the  earth  and  of  the  whole  world,  to 
gather  them  to  the  battle  of  that  great  day  of  God  Almighty."  * 

Anarchism  is  hastening  to  its  fruition  in  anarchy,  and 
the  massing  of  the  forces  of  evil  portend  *'  the  end  of 
an  age."  « 

From  a  merely  human  point  of  view  the  times  are 
portentous.  Figure  apart,  for  the  moment — the 
writer  in  the  Quarterly  Review^  alfeady  referred  to, 
calls  earnest  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  conditions 
that  preceded,  prepared  for,  and  precipitated  the 
French  Revolution  with  its  agony  and  blood,  are  now 
reproduced  on  the  scale  of  the  civilized  world.  He 
says  :  f 

"It  would  be  interesting  to  trace  the  resemblance  between  our 
time  and  the  latter  years  of  Louis  XV.,  or  those  which  went  before 

*  Rev.  xvi.  13,  14. 

\  Quarterly  Review^  Article  "Anarchist  Literature,"  January, 
1894,  p.  4. 


354      CHRIST  S    TRUMPET-CALL    TO    THE    MINISTRY. 

the  great  Revolution,  In  both  cases,  we  should  find  ourselves 
dwelling  on  the  '  fair  humanities,'  the  'mild  manners,'  the  toleration 
of  conflicting  ideals,  the  dreams  of  everlasting  peace,  and,  above  all, 
the  dilettante,  bric-a-brac,  and  pseudo-artistic  mania,  from  which  the 
whole  of  society  was  suffering.  Everywhere  we  should  hear  the 
prophet's  cry,  '  Watchman,  what  of  the  night  ? '  while  those  whose 
ears  were  keenest  might  catch  his  oracular  response,  *  The  morning 
cometh — and  also  the  night ' — such  a  night  as  a  hundred  years  ago 
hung  over  the  Place  de  la  Revolution  for  months  together." 

On  the  other  side,  the  host  of  the  King  of  kings,  the 
Church,   is  gathering  in   opposing  array,   with  every 

The  Hosts  of  needed  equipment  of  power  and  grace 
Light.  at  her  command;  bearing  the  sharp  and 
omnipotent  sword  of  the  Spirit,  the  Word  of  God, 
with  its  double  edge  of  judgment  and  grace,  in  the 
law  and  the  Gospel;  and  with  her  great  leader  sum- 
moning her,  by  his  Word  and  his  providence,  to 
present  victory  over  all  the  forces  of  evil,  and  to  the 
immediate  conquest  of  the  world. 

As  the  battle  is  about  to  be  joined,  men  ask  with 
bated  breath:  What  is  to  be  the  result?  Shall  it  be 
the  reenactment,  on  the  scale  of  the  world,  of  the 
scenes  of  the  French  Revolution  ?  The  titanic,  vol- 
canic forces  are  all  there,  and  only  a  touch  of  evil 
is  needed  to  bring  the  tremendous  results,  in  the 
defeat  of  the  good  and  in  social,  civil,  and  moral  de- 
struction. How  light  a  touch  may  serve  the  purpose, 
and  how  hopeless  the  defeat  and  ruin  may  become, 
the  experience  in  the  Pittsburg  riots  and  the  later 
uprisings  of  labor  and  anarchism  in  Chicago  may  sug- 
gest. Or  shall  it  be  the  final  victory  of  him  who  has 
"on  his  thigh  a  name  written,    King  of  kings,  and 

The  Leader's    Lord  of  lords"?*     That  will  all  depend 

Call.  upon  the  response  of  the  Church-  to  her 

Leader's  call.     She  is  commissioned  to  wield  "  the  two- 

*Rev.  xix.  i6. 


THE    PREACHER    AS    A    PASTOR    IN    THESE    TIMES.       355 

edged  sword  "  for  Christ.  She  has  the  promise  and 
assurance  of  certain,  complete,  and  speedy  victory. 
Every  obstacle  has  been  removed;  every  excuse  for 
delay  has  been  swept  away.  Will  she  obey  the  com- 
mand ''Go  ye,"  and  move  on  without  delay  to  the 
triumph  and  conquest  ? 

Whether  she  ivill  do  it  or  not  will  depend,  most  of  all, 
upon  what  her  appointed  leaders,  under  Christ — the  min- 
istry— will  do.  They  bear  up  the  standard  of  the 
cross;  they  hold  the  key  to  the  situation,  the  talis- 
man of  victory,  the  commission  for  commanding  and 
sounding  the  forward  movement;  and  upon  the  min- 
istry can  not  therefore  fail  to  rest  the  chief 
weight  of  responsibiUty ! 


THE   END. 


INDEX. 


Administrative  ability,  large  de- 
velopment of,  29;  Bushnellon, 
315*  339;  larger  measure  needed 
by  the  pastor,  339,  348;  exam- 
ples of,  347 

Alexander,  Archibald,  on  popu- 
larity, 212 

Alexander,  Joseph  Addison,  on 
the  mercenary  pastor,  334 

Alford,  Dean,  "  The  Queen's 
English,"  229 

Anarchism,  Age  of,  147;  charac- 
teristics, 147-15 1 

Anarchist  literature,  149 

"  Anna  Karenina,"  characterized, 
211 

Apologists  meeting  scientists  and 
rationalists,  287 

Apostles,  the,  their  Commission,  3; 
the  first  "missionaries,"  8;  view 
of  giving,  40;    were   preachers, 

195 
Apostolic,  rule  of  giving,  41  ;  rule 

in  preaching,  62 
Argyll,   Duke  of,    on   "  Christian 

Socialism,"  62,  209 
Aristotle,  "  The  Modern,"  208 
Arithmetic,  some  problems  in,  43 
Arnold,  Matthew,  182 
Augustine,  199 
Authority,  modern  revolt  against, 

147 

"  Back  to  the  Law,"  the  need  of 
the  age,  75 ;  not  merely  as  the 
battle-cry  of  reform,  80 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  character- 
istics of,  261-266;  debt  to 
Ruskin,  264 


Beecher,  Lyman,  on  value  of  revi- 
vals, 273 

Bellamy,  Joseph,  Bible  as  word  of 
God,  281 

Bible  Christianity,  as  a  saving 
power,  the  preacher's  theme,  53; 
in  doctrinal  form,  essential  to 
preaching,  no 

Bible,  text-books  of  salvation,  72; 
as  the  Book  of  God,  188;  as 
theology,  190;  as  practical  truth, 
192;  intensely  practical,  193; 
a  practical  book,  243;  answers 
in  its  doctrines  the  great  human 
questions,  243;  makes  all  ma- 
terial things  typical,  256 

Biblical  knowledge,  preacher's 
need  of  a  better,  188;  from 
three  points  of  view,  188-194 

Blackstone,  view  of  tithes,  41 

Blair,  William,  rhetoric  of,  208-237 

Bonar,  Dr.  Horatius,  "Words  to 
the  Winners  of  Souls,"  128,  198, 
200,  268 

Booth,  Robert  Russell,  experience 
in  revival,  298 

Bushnell,  Horace,  his  famous  epi- 
gram, 55;  on  duty  of  adminis- 
tration, 315,  339 

Butler,  Joseph,  "Analogy  of  Re- 
ligion," 280 

Call  to  the  ministry,  essential,  160; 
from  Christ  and  constraining, 
161;  the  brilliant  preacher  with- 
out, 162 

Candlish,  Dr.  Robert  S.,  the 
judge's  estimate  of  his  preaching, 
310 


357 


358 


INDEX. 


Carlyle, Thomas,  on  "bankruptcy 
of  science"  and  mechanical  era, 
148 

Chalmers,  Dr.  Thomas,  "  expul- 
sive power  of  a  new  affection," 
63;  failure  to  solve  the  problem 
of  poverty,  66;  estimate  of  re- 
form preaching,  64;  failure  in, 
69 

Chambers,  Talbot  W.,  The  Noon 
Prayer  Meeting,  288 

Changes  in  Christian  methods, 
312 

Christ,  his  command,  and  his  au- 
thority, 3;  his  statement  of  his 
mission,  53;  method  of  preach- 
ing, 62,  67;  his  principle  of 
unity  of  aim,  85;  emphasis  on 
repentance,  97;  his  emphasis  on 
regeneration,  104;  on  the  en- 
mity of  the  world,  133;  on 
prayer  for  more  laborers  in  the 
vineyard,  161;  his  threefold 
charge  to  Peter,  304;  his  re- 
quirement of  pastoral  care  for 
the  young,  344;  his  "  Leader's 
call,"  354 

Christian  giving,  the  Scriptural  law 
of,  34-48;  false  theories,  35; 
the  Church's  practical  theory, 
35;  Christian  the  steward  of 
Christ  in,  37;  Old  Testament 
rule,  37;  New  Testament  rule, 
39;  Christ's  view  of,  39;  Apos- 
tles' view,  40;  Apostolic  rule, 
41;  Church's  unscriptural  theory, 
42;  Scriptural  law  of,  makes 
ample  provision  for  evangeliz- 
ing the  world,  43 

Christianity,  its  proposals,  59;  re- 
constructs, 60;  mode  of  trans- 
forming man,  62;  a  doctrine  and 
a  life,  98;  its  basis  the  Bible,  as 
God's  word,  112;  antagonized  by 
the  New  Secularism,  142;  recog- 
nizes original  sin,  142;  has  a 
principle  of  recovery,  which 
heathenism  lacks,  157;  its  prog- 
ress in  the  plan  of  God,  351 

Christian  living,    the  logic  of,  246 


Church,  her  commission  and  re- 
sponsibility, 34;  requirement  to 
furnish  pecuniary  means,  6; 
missionary  opportunity,  8;  im- 
mense wealth,  21;  failure  in  the 
work,  51;  a  spiritual  agency, 
54;  decline  of  power,  133; 
causes  at  work,  133;  influence 
of  skepticism,  136;  why  young 
men  don't  go  to,  146;  the  retro- 
spect and  prospect,  300;  what 
her  future,  humanly  speaking, 
dependent  upon  the  ministry, 
302;  her  critical  position,  354 

Church  of  Scotland,  confession  of, 
198 

Clifford,  Professor,  his  atheism, 
136 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  on  wealth,  21; 
aphorism,  254 

Collatia,  illustration  of  consecra- 
tion from,  199 

Columbian  exposition,  45 

Columbus,  Christopher,  voyage  of, 
16,  17 

Comte,  Auguste,  atheistic  philos- 
ophy, 286 

Consecration,  preacher's  need  of 
more  complete,  197-204;  God's 
call  for,  200 

Constantinople,  the  fa41  of,  18 

Constructive  training,  importance 
of,  171;  neglect  of,  176;  essen- 
tial, 177;  method  of,  178,  179 

Corporations  and  law,  81 

Covetousness,  God's  hatred  of,    50 

Cui  bono  ?  the  motto  of  the  age,  214 

Cunningham,  W, ,  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  problem,  87;  historical 
economic  changes,  307 

Day,    Henry    N.,    "Art   of  Dis- 
course,"    237;      principles     of 
style,  253 
Dead  orthodoxy,  its  worthlessness, 

118 
Definition,  value  of  exact,  170 
Deism,  English,  prevalence  of,  280 
De  Quincey,  Thomas,  "  Biograph- 
ical Essays,"  21 


INDEX. 


359 


Despotic  sway  of  militarism  and 
monopoly,  155,  156 

De  Wette,  "  Introduction,"  286 

Doctrinal  preaching,  its  partial 
abandonment  and  the  reasons, 
110-119;  return  to,  a  necessity, 
I19-127;  the  three  R's  of  sal- 
vation, 121 

Doctrine,  schism  of,  and  ethics, 
77;  linked  with  life,  g8;  four 
fundamental  doctrines,  105;  es- 
sential to  preaching,  iia-119; 
return  to,  in  preaching  a  neces- 
sity, 119-121;  and  ideal  Chris- 
tian life,  Paul's  view,  122  ; 
Peter's  view,  123;  Froude's 
view,  124;  essential  to  rational 
religious  life,  128;  central  in 
preaching,  245 ;  present  depre- 
ciation of,  295;  what  now  re- 
quired, 293-297 

Dogma,  unreasonable  sneers  at, 
98 

Dornerism,  defects  of,  78;  tends 
to  Universalism,  post-mortem 
probation,  etc.,  79 

Draper,  John  W.,  physical  sciences 
in  training  the  clergy,  240; 
"  Conflict  of  Science  and  Relig- 
ion," 242 

Earnestness,  intense,  demanded  of 
the  preacher,  202;  illustrated  by 
Xavier,  202;  Paul's  example  of, 
203;  essential  to  the  leadership 
of  the  ministry,  204 

Economics,  moral  law  over,  89; 
historical  principles  of,  307 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  character  of 
his  age,  96 

Egoism  and  Altruism,  76 

Electricity,  agency  in  opening  the 
world,  II 

Eloquence,  various  study  of,  222; 
elements  of  sacred,  225;  need  of 
correct  theory  of,  231;  working- 
theory  of,  232 

Emmons,  Dr.  Nathaniel,  on  "tol- 
erably good  ministers,"  349 

Enthusiasm,      demanded     of    the 


preacher,  200;  ilhistrated  by 
Michelangelo,  201 

Era  of  Revival,  need  of  a  fourth 
era,  290;  exigencies  to  be  met, 
291;  doctrines  required  to  pro- 
mote it,  293 

Eras  of  Revival,  279;  peculiar 
features  of,  280;  first  era,  280; 
second  era,  282;  third  era,  285 

Ethics  of  selfishness,  crystallized 
by  Paley,  etc.,  76;  illustrated, 
117 

Faith,  justification  by,  the  test  of 
Protestantism,  102;  importance 
illustrated,  103;  relations  to 
reason  and  philosophy;  not 
blind  trust,  but  rational,  113 

Farrar,  F.  W.,  "  The  Message  of 
the  Books,"  189 

Finney,  Charles  G.,  secret  of 
power,  96,  292 

Fish,  Dr.  Henry  C,  "Primitive 
Piety  Revived,"  127,  128,312 

Flint,  Robert,  "  Philosophy  of 
History,"  208 

French,  skepticism,  prevalence  of, 
282 

Fulton  Street  Prayer-meeting,  its 
origin,  288;  memorial  volume 
on,  288;  its  development  of  the 
laity,  289 

Furnishing  of  the  preacher,  what 
essential,  130;  in  knowledge  and 
oratorical  skill,  180-197;  in 
science  and  philosophy,  181;  in 
Biblical  knowledge,  188;  in 
special  power  to  preach,  194 

Future  punishment,  disbelief  of 
the  age  in,  151;  examination  of 
a  candidate  on,  152 

Germanizing  theological  semina- 
ries, 172 

Germany,  influence  of,  methods, 
174;  present  tendency  of  the- 
ology in,  174 

God's  law,  the  rule  of  family. 
Church,  and  State,  248 

Gon^alo  de  Cordova,  genius  of,  17 


360 


INDEX. 


Gospel,  scientific  and  esthetic,  217; 
of  sensation,  218;  of  petty  prac- 
ticality, 219;  its  twofold  aim,  244 
"  Great  Awakening,"  character  of 

the  preaching,  127 
Great  awakening,  now  needed,  277 
Great  Britain  at  the  front,  18 
Great   Commission,    its   terms,  2; 
its  requirements  of  the  Church, 
4;  test  questions,  5,  6;  standing 
objections,  8 
Great  truths  at  basis  of  great  life, 

125 

Guizot,  "  Meditations  on  Chris- 
tianity," 243 

Guthrie,  Thomas,  a  judge's  esti- 
mate of,  310;  "Sketches of  the 
Cowgate,"  346 

Harris,  Dr.  John,  *'  The  Great 
Commission,"  12 

Higher  criticism  and  new  theol- 
ogy, 141 

Hodge,  Dr,  Charles,  "  Preaching 
the  Gospel  to  the  Poor,"  138 

Hugo,   Victor,    illustration   from, 

143 

Huxley,  Thomas,  185,  241 

Ideas,  practical,  in  man,  233;  of 
truth,  234;  of  happiness,  234; 
of  perfection,  235;  of  duty,  235; 
presenting  God's  truth  to,  249 

Immediate  evangelization  of  the 
world,  required  of  the  Church, 
5;  providential  preparation  of 
the  world  for,  8-34;  Scriptural 
law  of  giving  provides  the 
means  for,  34-47;  the  mission- 
ary call  to,  47;  the  needed  bap- 
tism of  the  Holy  Spirit  for,  49; 
the  only  real  obstacle  to,  51; 
old  excuses  removed,  51 

Institutions,  three  divine,  247 

Invention,  in  rhetoric,  237;  proc- 
esses of,  237 

Isaiah,  his  preaching  in  a  crisis 
like  the  present,  92;  vision  in 
the  Temple,  131;  his  response 
to  God's  call,  164 


James,  his  man  with  the  gold  ring, 

139 
Jerome,  view  of  tithes,  38 
Josephus,  view  of  tithes,  38 
Justification,  by  faith,  the  princi- 
ple of  Protestanism,  loi 

Kingdom  of  God,  new  doctrine  of, 

147 

Knowledge,  necessity  for  definite, 
170;  a  professor's  protest  against 
170 

Knox,  John,  his  call,  161 

'  Labor  Church,"  144 

Laissez-faire  principle  in  English 
history,  307;  influence  of,   308; 

Lanphier,  Mr.  J.  C,  and  Fulton 
Street  Prayer-meeting,  288 

Law,  God's,  the  starting-point  in 
preaching,  74;  neglect  of 
preaching,  74;  basis  of  morality, 
75;  preaching  to  sinners,  80; 
relation  to  human  societies,  81; 
way  of  life,  93;  standard  of 
judgment,  94;  its  preaching  il- 
lustrated, 95 

Laymen,  agency  of,  in  the  Gospel, 
67;  in  reform  movements,  67; 
brought  forward  by  third  era  of 
revivals,  289 

Lea,  Mr.  Henry  C,  on  Murder  in 
Christendom,  150 

Licentiousness  flooding  literature 
and  intrenching  itself,    149,    150 

Lilly,  Mr.  W.  S.,  "On  Shibbo- 
leths," quoted  on  retributive  jus- 
tice, 90;  on  American  political 
corruption,  91;  on  the  coming 
revolution,  157 

Living  pictures,  as  culmination  of 
depravity,  212 

Logical  training,  importance  of  a 
better,  166 

Lombroso,  fatal  errors  of  his  so- 
ciology, 83;  demoralizing  influ- 
ence of,  83 

Love,  defective  analysis  of,  78 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  on  the 
Great  Avenger,  158 


INDEX. 


361 


Luke,    record  of  promise  of   the 

Holy  Spirit,  49 
Luther  and  the  devil,  137;  need  of 

a,  348 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  opinion  of  rhet- 
oric, 224 

Magellan,  his  voyage,  18 

Magnetism,  agency  in  opening  the 
world,  10 

Mallock,  W.  H.,  "  Physics  and 
Sociology,"  84 

Manhood,  importance  of,  in 
preaching,  239 

Mark, "The  Great  Commission,"  2 

Marvin,  Dr.  A.  P.,  on  revivals, 
288 

Matter  of  preaching,  God's  truth, 
240;  in  practical  relations,  243; 
in  human  relations,  247;  to  prac- 
tical ideas,  249 

Means  needed  for  evangelization, 
in  the  hands  of  the  Church,  20 

Message,  of  the  preacher,  53-129; 
both  law  and  Gospel,  essential, 

71 

Michelangelo,  illustrating  enthu- 
siasm, 201 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  a  logical  wreck, 

183 

Minister,  "active,"  illustrated, 
275-276;  the  present  duty  of 
each,  298;  to  do  what  the  Com- 
mission requires,  296;  to  rouse 
and  lead  the  Church,  297;  the 
"  tolerably  good,"  349 

Ministry,  cause  of  present  inade- 
quacy of,  133-153;  the  remedy, 
153-204;  periods  of  decline  in, 
198;  not  a  profession,  267;  call- 
ing and  consecration  of,  267; 
expectation  of  results  in  preach- 
ing, 267;  Bonar  on  the  spirit  of, 
268;  requirements  made  of  all 
the,  298;  an  "overstocked,"  334; 
present  power  and  responsibility 
of,  355 

Mohammedanism,  check  of,  16 

Monthly  concert,  12;  providences 
following  upon,  12 


Moody,  Dwight  L,,  representing 
lay  movement,  29 

Moral  disorder,  in  man,  55;  its  ex- 
tent, 56;  involves  both  wreck 
and  wretchedness,  57;  various 
proposed  remedies,  58;  Christi- 
anity the  only  remedy,  59 

Moral  Law,  over  society,  89;  over 
economics,  89;  over  politics,  91; 
binds  man  to  God  only,  76 

Moses,  on  giving,  37;  on  the  ben- 
evolence of  God's  law,  93;  pat- 
ronized, 167-169 

Muller,  Julius,  man  not  a  legisla- 
tor, 247 

Murder,  age  of,   statistics  of,  150 

Naturalness,  false  sense  of,  224 
Newell,  W.W.,  "Revivals:  How 

and  When,"  273,  288 
Newman,    F.   W.,    influence    of, 

286 
Normal    method    of     conversion, 

271;  need  of  return  to,  274 
Novels,  the  era  of,  210 
Novelty,  the  rage  for,  209;    in  the 

pulpit,  212;  the  Greek  rage  for, 

214 

Oratory,  better  theory  of,  needed, 
222;  prevailing  theories  and  no 
theories,  223;  partial  theories, 
225;  freedom  in,  229;  correct 
theory,  231-239;  elements  of 
correct  theory,  232;  practical 
ideas  in,  233 

Parker,  Theodore,  influence  of, 
286 

Pastor,  preacher  as,  304-355  ;  his 
special  work,  304  ;  hindrances  to 
the  work  of,  306;  need  of  ad- 
ministrative talent,  315  ;  false 
modes  of  meeting  changed  con- 
ditions, 316-320  ;  how  to  make 
efficient,  320  ;  law  of  his  work, 
320  ;  the  energies  of  the  mem- 
bership to  be  directed  by,  322  ; 
in  the  leadership,  327  ;  breaches 
of  the  divine  law  of,  328  ;  lead- 


362 


INDEX. 


ership  of,  denied,  331  ;  for  this 
age,  332  ;  a  mercenary,  334  ;  an 
unmistakable  call,  333  ;  a  higher 
Christian  life,  335  ;  a  profound 
sense  of  his  mission,  337  ;  larger 
administrative  ability,  339-348  ; 
broader  and  better  pastoral 
training  for,  348-353  ;  in  train- 
ing the  young,  343  ;  call  for  en- 
larged sympathy  in,  349 

Pastorate,  problem  of,  304;  changed 
conditions  of,  306  ;  divine  law 
of,  320-332 

Paul,  the  Apostle,  view  of  preach- 
ing, I  ;  his  statement  of  Christ's 
mission,  53  ;  statement  of  man's 
moral  disorder,  55  ;  treatise  on 
the  way  of  salvation,  55  ;  his 
exposure  of  legalism,  65  ;  his 
three  Bible  text-books  of  salva- 
tion, 72  ;  his  presentation  of 
law,  75  ;  his  statement  of  the 
Christian's  obligations  to  man- 
kind, 80  ;  his  principle  of  unity 
in  Gospel  work,  85  ;  his  state- 
ment of  the  godward  side  of  sal- 
vation, 99  ;  his  answer  to  the 
jailer's  question,  99  ;  of  the 
manward  side,  lOi  ;  his  three 
great  "  therefores,"  loi  ;  on 
the  new  life,  104  ;  his  view 
of  the  legal  aspect  of  redemp- 
tion, 105  ;  the  legal  aspect 
of  redemption,  107  ;  the  rela- 
tions of  preaching,  doctrine, 
and  faith,  122  ;  his  ideal  Chris- 
tian, 122  ;  weeping  over  sinners, 
138  ;  his  sense  of  his  call,  161  ; 
his  earnestness;  203  ;  the  great- 
est sinner,  270 

Paxton,  Dr.  William  M.,  on  the 
aim  in  sermonizing,  163  ;  on  the 
preaching  now  required,  196 

Pentecostal  power  in  New  Testa- 
ment, 164 

Peter,  his  ideal  Christian,  123; 
Christ's     threefold     charge    to, 

304 
Philosophy  and  faith,  as  sources  of 
truth,  112;  distinction  between. 


112  ;  need  of  better  knowledge 
of,  181  ;  false,  how  to  be  met, 
182-186 

Pierson,  Dr.  Arthur  T.,  "  Play  of 
Missions,"  52  ;  "  Crisis  of  Mis- 
sions," 128 

Plutocracy,  danger  from,  156 

Politics,  relation  of  preaching  to, 
64  ;  the  moral  law  over,  191 

Power  to  preach,  preacher's  need 
of  more,  194 

Practical,  ideas  in  man,  Theremin's 
view  of,  233  ;  the  Bible,  243  ; 
Christians,  from  second  era  of 
revivals  of,  285 

Preacher,  the,  his  present  commis- 
sion, 1-52  ;  his  anxious  ques- 
tions, I  ;  his  leadership,  5; 
present  duty,  50  ;  his  message, 
53-129  ;  salvation  the  key-note, 
53  ;  Bible  Christianity  as  a  sav- 
ing power,  his  theme,  55  ;  re- 
generation fundamental,  55  ; 
both  law  and  gospel  essential, 
71  ;  duty  to  preach  doctrine, 
127  ;  pressure  of  secularism  on, 
153  ;  the  furnishing  needed, 
153-204  ;  intellectual  mastery 
of  the  situation,  154  ;  more 
Scriptural  working-theory,  159  ; 
a  different  and  better  training, 
165  ;  more  of  knowledge  and 
oratorical  skill,  180 ;  a  more 
complete  consecration,  197 ; 
present  requirements  of,  278  ; 
his  relation  to  revivals,  278  ; 
need  to  study  principles  of  re- 
vivals, 279  ;  as  a  pastor  in  these 
times,  304-355  ;  his  work  in 
gathering  and  shepherding,  304 

Preaching,  its  place  in  Gospel 
scheme,  i ;  that  leads  to  legalism, 
64;  two  opposite  modes  of,  65; 
the  law  to  sinners,  80  ;  dis- 
tinguished from  reading,  195  ; 
for  the  masses,  196  ;  Dr.  W.  M. 
Paxton  on,  196  ;  for  these 
times,  205-303  ;  the  times  as  a 
factor  in,  205  ;  required  by 
the  state   of     things,    221  ;  cor- 


INDEX. 


363 


rect  theory  of,  231  ;  in  its 
matter,  240  ;  expectation  of  re- 
sults in,  251-261  ;  in  its  man- 
ner, 253  ;  expository,  261  ;  in 
its  spirit,  266  ;  for  immediately 
evangelizing  the  world,  268-303; 
should  keep  in  view  the  Great 
Commission,  268  ;  Wesley's  test 
of  success  in,  270;  stated,  God's 
method,  271  ;  without  prepara- 
tion, danger  of,  275,  276  ;  for 
saving  the  world,  277-300  ;  doc- 
trines now  called  for  in,  293- 
297 

Principles,  importance  of  knowl- 
edge of,  186 ;  of  rhetorical 
method,  236  ;  of  invention,  237; 
of  style,  238  ;  giving  power  in 
preaching,  253  ;  present  lack  of 
interest  in,  309 ;  of  the  pas- 
torate, 320 

Problems  of  society,  82  ;  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race,  87 

Protestantism,  perversions  of,  154  ; 
dominance  of,  in  commerce,  14; 
in  the  nations,  15  ;  at  the  front, 
19;  its  original  aims,  154;  per- 
versions of,  154  ;  and  democ- 
racy, 155 

Providences  opening  the  world, 
nature  providences  in  magnet- 
ism, steam,  and  electricity,  9  ; 
removing  hostile  barriers,  12  ; 
Columbian  providences  making 
Protestantism  dominant,  16  ; 
immense  increase  of  wealth,  20  ; 
setting  free  the  messengers 
needed,  27  ;  development  of  ad- 
ministrative and  organizing  abil- 
ity, 27  ;  preparing  for  the  world's 
immediate  evangelization,  301 

Quarterly  Review,  on  Max  Nor- 
dau's  "  Degeneration,"  148  ;  il- 
lustration of  anarchist  literature 
from  Swinburne,  Oscar  Wilde, 
Tolstoi,  Ibsen,  etc.,  148  ;  on 
the  present  situation,  353 

Rally,  the  final,  of  the  century,  48 


Redemption,  itsGodward  side,  99; 
its  manward  side  as  given  by 
Paul,  101-106  ;  its  manifold 
aspects,  legal,  governmental, 
moral,  dynamic,  of  service,  sac- 
rificial, 107-110 

Reform,  relation  of  preaching 
to,  60  ;  Gospel  not  subsidiary  to, 
62  ;  true  relation  of  preacher  to, 
66  ;  futility  of  popular  preach- 
ing of,  65 

Regeneration,  fundamental  in 
preaching,  55  ;  requirements  of 
the  case,  58  ;  ignoring  it  fatal, 
60 

Repentance,  vital  to  Christianity, 
96, 97  ;  stress  on,  by  Finney 
and  Henry  B.  Smith,  and  by 
John  Baptist,  Christ,  and  the 
Apostles,  96,  97. 

Retributive  justice  the  law  of  the 
world,  90 

Revivalism,  special,  its  limitations, 
272;  legitimate,  testimony  con- 
cerning, 273 

Revivalists,  the  debt  of  the  Church 
to,  273 

Revival  of  Learning,  19 

Revival  of  1858,  agency  of  com- 
mercial depression  in,  287;  Dr. 
A.  P.  Marvin's  estimate  of,  288; 
outcome  in  Christian  organiza- 
tions of  the  laity,  2S9;  called  a 
"  Revival  of  Lore,"  292;  failure 
of  ministry  as  leaders  in,  296 

Revivals,  principles  of,  279;  three 
recent  eras  of,  279 

Revolution,  in  business,  306;  in 
character  and  usages,  309 

Rhetorical  method,  principles  of, 
236 

Righteousness,  the  supreme  thing, 

75 
"  Robert  Elsmere,"  characterized, 

211 

Robertson,  F.  W. ,  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility, 216 

Rogers,  Henry,  "  Greyson  Let- 
ters," 309 

Romanism,  decline  of,  16 


364 


INDEX. 


Romans,  epistle  to,  the  way  of 
salvation,  55;  text-book  of  sal- 
vation, especially  for  the  Roman 
and  Englishman,  72;  as  text- 
book of  salvation,  nearest  uni- 
versal, 72;  as  defining  the 
preacher's  message,  73;  sum- 
mary statement  of  the  Godward 
side  of  redemption,  99;  the  three 
great  "  therefores,"  loi;  legal 
aspect  of  redemption,  107 

Romish  preaching,  by  Protestants, 
64 

R's,  the  three,  of  salvation,  121 

Ruskin,  John,  "  Modern  Paint- 
ers,''208;  on  utility,  215;  theory 
of  beauty,  255;  debt  of  Beecher 
to,  264 

Sacrificial  aspect  of  redemption, 
109 

Salvation  the  key-note  of  the  Gos- 
pel, 53;  Bible  text-books  of,  72; 
law  the  starting-point,  74;  from, 
and  not  in,  sin,  96;  its  Godward 
side,  99;  its  manward  side,  lor; 
relation  to  doctrine,  120 ;  the 
three  R's  of,  121 

Schodde,  Dr.  George  P.,  "  Theo- 
logical Thought   in    Germany," 

174 

Science  and  philosophy,  the 
preacher's  need  of  better  knowl- 
edge of,  181-188 

Science,  belongs  to  the  Church, 
134;  its  great  expounders  Chris- 
tian, 134;  falsely  so  called,  134; 
modern  triumphs  of,  206;  no 
revelation  of  salvation,  242 

Scientific,  method,  value  of,  171; 
spirit,  activity  of,  206 

Secularism,  this  an  age  of,  133; 
its  materialistic  scientism.  134; 
its  shallow  philosophy,  133;  in- 
fluence on  the  Church,  136;  age 
of  socialistic,  140;  the  old,  dead, 
141;  characteristics,  140-147; 
the  new,  crystallizing  in  the 
Labor  Church,  144;  manifesta- 
tions in  the  Church,  146 


Selfishness,  new  ethics  of,  117; 
unbridled,  149 

Sensationalism  a  failure,  276 

Service  of  man,  demanded  by  the 
law,  80;  as  an  aspect  of  redemp- 
tion, 109  ;  and  self-sacrifice, 
109 

Sexton,  a,  who  did  not  know 
broadcloth,  139 

Shedd,  W.  G.  T.,  "  Homiletic 
and  Pastoral  Theology,"  315 

Shepard,  Elliot  F.,  example  of,  31 

Sinners,  against  preaching  the 
law,  152;  Paul  the  greatest  of, 
270 

Smith,  Dr.  Henry  B.,  stress  on  re- 
pentance, 96;  on  relation  of 
faith  to  philosophy,  112 

Smith,  John  Pye,  287 

Society,  problems  of,  82;  social 
progress  of,  not  social  evolution, 
84;  not  an  organism,  84;  moral 
law  over,  89 

Sociological  fallacies,  83;  Mallock 
on,  84 

Sociology,  positivist,  dangers  of, 
82 

Spain,  her  glory  and  decadence, 
17,  18 

Specialism,  tendency  of  mere,  175; 
leads  to  neglect  of  constructive 
training  and  thinking,  176 

Spencer,  Herbert,  unwarranted 
estimate  of,  114;  all-pervasive 
false  teaching,  115,  182,  183, 
241,  291 

Sphinx  riddles,  130  ;  of  religion 
the  greatest,  131 

Spring,  Dr.  Gardner,  on  purpose 
in  sermonizing,  163 

Spurgeon,  C.  H,,  characteristics 
of,  261-266 

Stated  preaching  for  conversion 
the  normal  method,  271 

Stead,   Mr.,   "Civic  Church,"  61. 

Steam,  agency  in  opening  the 
world,  II  ;  in  the  hands  of 
Protestants,  10 

Strong,  Dr.  Josiah,  "Our  Coun- 
try," 128 


INDEX. 


365 


Style,  principles  and  essentials  of, 
253;  principles  giving  power  in, 
253;  Biblical  qualities,  concrete, 
illustrative,  and  specific  presen- 
tation, 254-261;  principles  illus- 
trated in  Beecher  and  Spurgeon, 
261-266 

Tappan,   Lewis,   "Is  it  Right  to 

be  Rich?"  25 

Territorial  Method,  in  reaching 
the  world,  346 

Texts,  specific  truths  in,  illus- 
trated, 258-260 

Theological  training,  need  of  bet- 
ter, 172;  danger  from  Germaniz- 
ing tendency,  172;  from  mere 
specialism,  175;  from  neglect  of 
constructive  thinking,  176 

Theology,  shallowness  and  impu- 
dence of  the  rationalistic,  166- 
168 

Therefores,     Paul's    three     great, 

lOI 

Theremin,  Francis,  "  Eloquence  a 
Virtue,"  234;  "Demosthenes 
and  Massillon,"  practical  ideas, 

249  . 

Thinking,  indefinite,  influence  of, 
116 

This-world-ism,  133 

This-worldliness,  Walter  Walsh 
on,  140,  145 

Times,  the,  as  a  factor  in  preach- 
ing, 205;  practical  characteris- 
tics of  these,  206-216;  results  in 
the  preaching,  216-220 

Tithe,  expressions  for,  in  New 
Testament,  41 

Tithe-system,  errors  regarding, 
37-39;  abrogated,  39-41;  Black- 
stone's  view,  41 

Tobit,  view  of  tithes,  38 

Tolstoi,  "The  Kreutzer  Sonata," 
149 

Transcendentalism,  shallow,  iii; 
rational,  legitimate,  112;  ration- 
alistic, baseless,  114 

Triad,  the  Christian  and  the 
pagan,  145 


Truth,  in  order  to  holiness,  117; 
essential  to  rational  and  relig- 
ious life,  124 

Uebervveg,  "  History  of  Philos- 
ophy," 116 

Universalist  pew-holder,  power  of 
a.  152 

Utility  the  rage  for,  214  ;  John 
Ruskin's  distinction,  215 

Vasco  da  Gama;  voyage  of,  17 
Vincent,  Bishop  John  H.,  on  pas- 
tor's duty  of  training  the  young, 
344 

Walsh,  Walter,  on  "The  New 
Secularism,"  140-145 

Warren,  Bishop  H.  W.,  view  of 
ethics,  77 

Watchman's  responsibility,  271 

Wayland,  Francis,  ministry  not  a 
profession,  267,  334 

Wealth  of  the  Church,  revolution 
and  its  causes,  21  ;  the  world's 
treasure-fields  given  to  Protest- 
antism, 23  ;  results  of  the  revo- 
lution, 24 ;  consequent  Chris- 
tian duty,  25  ;  dangers  from 
hoarded,  45  ;  perils  from  mis- 
used, 46  ;  the  present  problem  of, 
47  ;  and  the  age-temptation,  89 

Well-being,  its  two  senses,  78  ; 
the  sense  chosen  decides  the 
morality  and  the  theology,  79  ; 
the  wrong  view  of,  wrecks 
morals  and  life,  79 

Wesley,  John,  tests  of  success, 
270 

Westminster  Review,  on  "  The 
Sexual  Problem,"  149 

Whately,  Archbishop,  "  Rhet- 
oric," 236 

Wickedest  sinners,  270 

Wuttke,  "Christian  Ethics,  77 

Xavier,  Francis,  earnestness  of, 
202 

Zola,  M.,  as.anarchist  novelist,  211 


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